Health secretary Yvette Cooper questioned on NHS heat, waiting lists and corridor care

The health secretary, Yvette Cooper, faced questions about NHS preparedness for extreme heat, waiting lists and corridor care as hot weather added to pressure on hospitals.

The Royal College of Nursing said staff were collapsing in the heat. The union wants hospitals to get air conditioning, as the climate change committee has called for. In an interview, Cooper said planning for extreme heat was just as important as planning for winter. She said the heat was affecting people's health and the NHS, with record accident and emergency attendances in July. She also said it was affecting working conditions because many hospitals were built decades ago, before climate change was a consideration.

Asked if she would ask the chancellor for extra funding so the NHS could prepare for more extreme heat in future, Cooper pointed to substantial additional funding from the Labour government. She said the NHS had to start doing greater planning and preparation for extreme heat and summer pressures in the way it had traditionally done for winter.

Figures showed more than a third of patients are still waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment. Asked if it was unlikely she would deliver on the promise that everyone would be seen within 18 weeks, Cooper said the waiting list had fallen by nearly 350,000 since the election. The interviewer said it had gone up since March. Cooper replied that the waiting list came down in June, perhaps for the first time, although only by a few thousand, and that normally the list would rise at that time of year.

The same figures showed more than 3,000 cases of corridor care a day in England's hospitals last month. Asked what she would do differently to end the problem, Cooper said corridor care was completely unacceptable. She said some of it was about the number of people arriving at A&E because of the extreme heat, but it was also about having the right systems in place and tackling social care.

She was also asked about comments from Andy Burnham that there would be difficult decisions on raising taxes to pay for social care reform. Asked whether the public would have to accept paying more to fix the system, Cooper said a whole range of things needed to be looked at. She said the questions would need to be answered in 12 months at the conclusion of Louise Casey's review, when possible options are examined. She added that the to-do list was long.

The report ended by asking whether the third health secretary of this government would be the one to deliver.