Hospital reopens emergency department to new admissions after power restored

A hospital has reopened its emergency department to new admissions after suffering a power outage which caused it to declare a major incident.

The Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, Hampshire, cancelled a “small number of procedures” following the outage which also affected phone lines, but patients are now being told to attend the hospital as normal.

A Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust spokeswoman said: “Following a serious power outage earlier this morning, we have been able to restore power to most of the QA Hospital site and re-opened our emergency department.

“Due to this we have made the decision to step down from major incident to an internal critical incident. Work to identify and investigate the cause behind this morning’s outage continues.

“Many of our IT systems are now back up and running, so if you have an outpatient appointment, please continue to attend as usual unless you have heard from us directly.

“We have had to cancel a small number of procedures this morning, but our teams are working hard to safely continue carrying as many of these out as possible.

“We expect to see some delays as services are coming back online so ask for your patience and understanding while our teams work to do this.

“Our phone lines are still having some issues, and we will share an update when these are fully back. We are also having issues with the card readers in our car parks so have suspended payment for today (Monday August 5).

“Visitors are welcome to attend the hospital as normal.”