Portsmouth hospital reopens A&E after restoring power

A hospital has reopened its emergency department after closing it to new admissions and declaring a major incident after a power cut.

The outage on Monday morning at the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, Hampshire, also affected phone lines. A small number of procedures had to be cancelled.

The hospital said electricity had since been restored to most of the site, allowing the emergency department to reopen. It downgraded the incident from major to internal critical.

Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust said: “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.”

The hospital added its phone lines and card readers in car parks were still having some problems and payments for parking on Monday had been suspended. Visitors were also welcome to attend the hospital as normal.

An investigation is under way. The trust had earlier posted on X : “As a result of an unexpected serious loss of power, Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust has declared a major incident at Queen Alexandra hospital.

“The hospital is safe and our staff are working hard to continue providing care for patients already with us, but we have made the decision to close to new attendances to our emergency department.

“Patients with a serious medical condition must phone NHS 111 or 999 in an emergency and not attend the QA hospital emergency department. Phone lines and switchboard are also affected, so you will not be able to call into or receive calls from the hospital at this time.

“Our on-site teams are working to restore power as soon as possible. We expect some services will be affected today and there may be some cancellations, but please continue to attend unless you have been contacted or updated through us directly or our website/social media.”