The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that in the week ending August 15, there were 907 more deaths recorded than the average for comparable weeks in the previous five years.

But statisticians warned against reading too much into the figure.

Peter Goldblatt, of the ONS's health and care division, said the number of deaths naturally varied each week by around 500, so it was impossible to say whether the 907 deaths were due to the heatwave.

The ONS conceded, however, that it was likely that some of the deaths were due to the heat, which hit a record 38.1 degrees centigrade (100.6 Fahrenheit) on August 10 in Gravesend, in Kent, southeast England.

The situation was far worse in France, where undertakers have said more than 10,000 might have died during the hot weather as hospitals struggled with a dramatic influx of patients.

A definitive figure on French deaths is not expected for several more weeks.

In Britain, the Department of Health said it did not collect data on heat-related deaths, and that it was unaware of a substantial extra burden on the National Health Service (NHS), which runs the nation's hospitals.

"We were aware of an increase in demand in some NHS areas during the hot weather, mainly in the south of England," a spokesman said.

"Some ambulance services had quite a lot of extra calls at the time (and) there was a knock-on effect with more people going (to emergency wards), but we did not see any hospitals unable to cope."

He added: "It would be for someone like the ONS to conduct research such as going through death certificates, and even that would not produce a definite indication of whether a death was caused by the heat."

The ONS's weekly mortality figures showed a total of 10,132 deaths were registered in the week ending August 15 -- up 907 on the five-year average of

This compared to just 78 deaths more than average registered in the previous week.

The ONS noted that among the deaths registered in recent weeks, around three-quarters related to deaths occurring in the week ending August 15, around one in five related to the previous week, and one in 20 occurred more than two weeks before.

TERRA.WIRE