More than 40,000 people died in England due to extreme heat between 1988 and 2025, new figures have revealed.Those deaths were especially concentrated in London, where 7,675 extra people died on the hottest days over the last four decades.These figures, provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), do not include this year's summer, which is likely to see the highest ever number of heat–related deaths.In what experts are calling a 'shocking national scandal', this presents the very real possibility that summer heat deaths will soon outstrip deaths on the coldest days.In the past, it has been argued that climate change is an acceptable risk for the UK because milder winters would reduce cold deaths faster than heat deaths increased.However, as the UK Health Security Agency estimates that 2,877 died in this year's May and June heatwaves alone, that suggestion looks far less certain.Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, told the Daily Mail: 'These figures show that summer heat is now killing almost as many people as winter cold each year in England and Wales.'This is a shocking national scandal, and if we had this number of deaths from flooding there would be widespread and justifiable outrage.' More than 40,000 people died in England due to extreme heat between 1988 and 2025, new figures have revealed. Pictured: the estimated proportion of deaths related to the hottest (red) and coldest (blue) days