The effects of spider bites are putting more people in hospital in England than 10 years ago, according to a freedom of information request by the Press Association.<\/p>\n
NHS figures show that there were 100 hospital admissions in 2025 linked to spider bites – up from 47 in 2015.<\/p>\n
Experts are blaming the trend on a sharp increase in the noble false widow spider, which has been described as \u00ab\u00a0the most dangerous spider breeding in Britain\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The charity Buglife says the spiders are not aggressive and there’s no record of them causing serious illness or death, but they can cause pain and swelling in rare cases if they bite.<\/p>\n
The false widow species is said to originate from Madeira and the Canary Islands and was first seen in southern England in 1879.<\/p>\n
You can spot them by the pattern on their bodies, often described as skull-shaped, says the Natural History Museum. Their webs are a tangle of threads suspended above the ground and they like to hang out in kitchens and conservatories.<\/p>\n
Clive Hambler, a lecturer in biological and human sciences at the University of Oxford, told PA there were \u00ab\u00a0hardly any consequences from spider bites in Britain\u00a0\u00bb 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0The incidents of severe bites from spiders in Britain will have increased, as this species (false widows) became hugely more abundant in Britain, particularly in the south.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
NHS figures obtained by PA show there were 43 hospital admissions due to spider bites in 2021, increasing to 95 the following year. In both 2023 and 2024, there were 91 admissions.<\/p>\n
Last year, there were 100 admissions, 73 of which came through the A&E department, compared with 38 of the 47 in 2015.<\/p>\n
A baby in Ireland was treated in the emergency department of his local hospital after a bite in 2022, while a Lincolnshire woman said she thought her finger would \u00ab\u00a0explode\u00a0\u00bb after a suspected spider bite in 2023.<\/p>\n
There could be a number of reasons why hospital admissions linked to spider bites may be on the rise – doctors might be becoming more aware of spider bites and a growing UK population may also be a factor.<\/p>\n
Dr Michel Dugon, a zoologist at the University of Galway, said the figures are \u00ab\u00a0interesting\u00a0\u00bb but \u00ab\u00a0not surprising\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He said the \u00ab\u00a0most obvious\u00a0\u00bb factor that might have caused the rise is \u00ab\u00a0the explosion in the population of noble false widow\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0We know that those species indeed can actually bite, that they do have a preference to live in and around houses rather than in natural habitats, at least in the UK and Ireland,\u00a0\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
But Dr Dugon said that more media coverage of false widow spiders and their bites over the last few years, might have convinced some people to come forward believing they have been bitten by the species when it may have been something else.<\/p>\n
Spider bites leave small puncture marks on the skin. This can be painful and may cause redness and swelling.<\/p>\n
Professor David Lalloo, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine says the bites from false widow spiders \u00ab\u00a0are not dangerous\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
But they can make people feel unwell for a day, he added.<\/p>\n
When it bites, the noble false widow injects a neurotoxin which can cause pain in the bite area, minor swelling and in extreme cases make your feel sick, according to Buglife.<\/p>\n
The spider’s neurotoxins don’t result in gangrene-like infections – the charity says this results from a bacterial infection which could come from any source including scratching a mosquito bite, scratch or splinter wound with dirty fingers.<\/p>\n
There are no proven cases where the noble false-widow has caused death, coma or permanent injury, Buglife says.<\/p>\n
In fact, the female noble false-widow spiders are notably sluggish and non-aggressive, it adds.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0They will never run or jump at you in an aggressive manner as some people describe.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Most British spiders couldn’t bite you if they tried; their fangs are too small or weak to penetrate human skin.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Most large spiders are not inclined to bite a human \u2013 you can handle hundreds of large house or garden spiders and never get bitten,\u00a0\u00bb the conservation charity says.<\/p>\n
Sometimes venomous spiders can be brought into the UK on produce or goods from abroad.<\/p>\n
Buglife says spiders found in grocery areas of shops should be treated with caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The effects of spider bites are putting more people in hospital in England than 10 years ago, according to a freedom of information request by the Press Association. NHS figures show that there were 100 hospital admissions in 2025 linked to spider bites – up from 47 in 2015. Experts are blaming the trend on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}