Incident at Royal Sussex County Hospital – updates 

We continue to closely manage the situation at the Louisa Martindale Building following a small fire and diesel leak in the basement yesterday (Thursday 5 December). 

The fire service made our premises safe and dealt with the spill swiftly, but unfortunately some machinery in the basement requires further inspection and remedial works before it is fully operational again. 

This means some of the service lifts in the Louisa Martindale Building and other key estates infrastructure continues to be disrupted.  

Until this is addressed, which we hope will be over the weekend, our internal incident planning will continue, as well as the measures we have put in place to safeguard our patients. 

This includes postponing a small number of elective operations as a precaution and we wish to apologise to those patients affected. However, all our emergency surgical activity is continuing today, as well as day-case services.  

In some instances, the most urgent elective activity has been quickly rescheduled onto lists at our other hospitals. 

We thank you for your understanding and will provide further updates in due course. 

Update from Thursday 5 December

There is an ongoing incident at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton following a small fire caused by a burst generator pipe in the basement of the Louisa Martindale Building (LMB) during a routine test.  

The fire crew quickly secured the area and have since left the site.    

We are currently assessing the situation to determine the next steps. As a precaution, we have temporarily postponed a small number of planned operations in the LMB today.   

Further updates will be provided in due course.