Critical incident declared at two Sussex hospitals as people warned to avoid A&E
The cause of the outage is currently unclear - but University Hospitals Sussex said the issue had been resolved, although warned there was still some "additional pressure" on staff after the disruption.
Monday 15 January 2024 13:17, UK
Ambulances were diverted and people were told to avoid A&E after a critical incident was declared at two Sussex hospitals.
Significant phone and IT problems affected the Royal Sussex County in Brighton and the Princess Royal in Haywards Heath.
The local NHS Trust said the disruption was "widespread" and affected frontline teams - but the critical incident had ended at 9am on Monday after overnight work to restore IT systems.
University Hospitals Sussex had initially advised people on Sunday evening not to attend casualty unless it was a lifesaving emergency, with patients in ambulances being diverted to alternative hospitals.
On Monday, the Trust said "good progress was made overnight in restoring IT systems".
In a statement, it added: "Anyone with a planned appointment today should attend as normal unless they are contacted by our staff.
"Our Emergency Departments are receiving patients as normal, but please be aware that all teams are under additional pressure after the disruption over the weekend - if your health problem is not an emergency, or life-threatening, please visit 111.nhs.uk or call 111 for help or advice."
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St Richard's Hospital in Chichester and Worthing Hospital were impacted "to a lesser degree" so helped the two hospitals affected, said the Trust.
The cause of the systems outage is currently unclear.