Staff at fire-damaged hospital 'ran towards danger'

The head of a hospital that was ravaged by fire has said he is "so grateful for staff who ran towards danger and not away from it".

University Hospital Southampton's chief executive David French invited the BBC into the endoscopy unit where the blaze broke out at about 05:30 GMT on Sunday.

More than 500 patients were evacuated in 40 minutes by staff and firefighters, who took more than four hours to bring the incident under control.

The hospital trust said an investigation by the fire service found "the cause of the fire was electrical".

"Patients would have been clearly woken by a fire alarm," French said.

"I can only imagine how scary that must have been for everybody involved but my staff did an amazing job and I'm really proud of them."

Many of the 502 patients were moved to different areas of the hospitals, with some elderly care patients going to Southampton Children's Hospital.

Some patients also went to other hospitals in Hampshire.

Rowena told BBC Radio Solent her 96-year-old mother was in the hospital receiving treatment and she was one of those patients who had to be moved to a different ward.

She said just a wall separated the bay where her mother's bed was and the fire, and another patient had looked after her.

"So it's not only the staff, it's the very poorly patients that are looking out for each other as well," Rowena said.

Nobody was injured in the fire but, with the endoscopy unit destroyed, work is being do to find a solution to enable patients who need that service.

French said: "I don't have the full answer yet in terms of how we solve the capacity problem yet.

"We are in discussions with other hospitals, with private sector organisations, Lymington hospital and we are also investigating whether we can get a mobile unit on site to start to re provide the endoscopy service."

He estimated the damage would cost tens of millions of pounds to repair.

The hospital said a number of its wards remained closed due to fire, smoke or water damage following the incident.

It said it was about 200 beds down on what it would normally have available, so was having to cancel some elective surgeries.

The hospital remains open as a major trauma centre for the region for critical care, including cardiac and cancer care, after a handful of procedures were put on hold at the weekend.

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