Patients evacuated as fire breaks out in Chichester hospital

Patients had to be evacuated from St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester on 19^th June after a fire broke out in a laboratory.

Firefighters attended the incident in the pathology department at around 2pm yesterday and took several hours to contain the situation. The incident was treated as a hazardous chemical incident by West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.

Cathy Stone, Director of Nursing and Patient Safety at Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, said that some appointments had to be cancelled due to the incident but most of the hospital was able to operate as normal. Ms Stone added: “Services are back to normal, although regrettably some of our outpatients were affected today – we will contact everyone involved to rearrange those appointments at the earliest opportunity. Whilst the public would have seen a great deal of activity from the emergency services, the majority of our hospital services were unaffected.”

There were no casualties reported in the incident.