RNLI lifeguards on Bournemouth beach responded to incidents involving more than 240 people in July.

The charity said a total of 20 people who got into difficulty in the water had to be rescued or assisted.

There were almost 20 major first aid incidents including fits and seizures as well as heatstroke and heat exhaustion which were often as a result of people spending too much time in the midday sun or drinking alcohol excessively.

Almost 160 people required minor first aid.

This summer has seen up to 15,000 people a day visit Bournemouth beaches patrolled by RNLI lifeguards during the weekends.

Due to the sheer volume of people on the beach this summer, the lifeguards have also had to respond to ‘crowd control’ incidents.

The lifeguards are now preparing for what they expect to be their busiest week of the summer due to the bank holiday weekend and the Bournemouth Air Festival which starts on Thursday (August 30).

Ollie Taylor, RNLI Bournemouth lifeguard, said: “Here at Bournemouth we have a big sandbank just off the beach so it gets deep quickly. Swimmers who are less experienced or do not know the beach often get taken by surprise when they suddenly become out of their depth. We always encourage people to stay within their depth and be aware of this dip if they are less confident swimmers.”

Lifeguard Tom Dowden added: “We can also have quite a strong tidal flow at times which catches swimmers out, and sometimes drags them quickly down to towards the pier or the groynes at either side of our beach area.”

Dave Van Beirendonck, RNLI lifeguard supervisor, said: “The RNLI are the uniformed service visible on the sand, so people come to us with all sorts of extra-curricular problems and incidents, which we are almost always happy to help with.”