HEALTH chiefs at Southampton General Hospital say they will launch a full investigation into why part of the site was plunged into a black out after an electrical fault.

In a statement to the Echo bosses have revealed what caused the power outage - which was later declared a major incident and forced emergency patients to be sent to the county's neighbouring hospitals for treatment.

 

As reported appointments and operations were cancelled at Southampton and other Hampshire hospitals throughout the day - and firefighters rushed to the Coxford Road site to deal with a suspected fire in the north block.

Bosses said:

  • the issue was caused by a "failed high voltage underground cable - which had not previously shown any cause for concern."
  • Fire services were called to deal with smoke coming from an overheated back-up emergency lighting transformer.
  • 26 ambulances were diverted to neighbouring hospitals
  • 99 planned operations were cancelled
  • "A large number" of appointments were cancelled
  • "No patient equipment failed" during the outage.

Members of the public took to social media to praise hospital staff after they were reported to be using torches to guide patients and themselves round the blacked-out wards.

Sophie Jane Clayton said: "Well done to all the staff, particularly those in the intensive care and high dependency units. You all deserve an extra large mug of tea or glass of wine tonight."

David Dunford said: "Well done to all the nurses , doctors etc in a difficult situation, where we would be with out these great people."

Southampton's Conservative health spokesman Councillor Ivan White said: "It requires a full investigation as to why there was a failure which effectively led to the closure of the hospital.

"Let's make sure we can find out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen in the future and make sure people are ok.

Chair of voluntary action group Healthwatch Southampton Harry Dymond said he will be asking hospital chiefs how they will prioritise the backlog of patients who could not be treated on Wednesday.

But he added that the "unprecedented" incident will increase demand at the same time as staff are preparing to deal with winter pressures.

He said: "The most important bit of the plan is how they will prioritise. I will be discussing with them what they plan to do in terms of backlog."

 

A hospital spokesperson said: "As the incident relating to power failure in the central and eastern parts of the trust site was resolved on the day, we were able to resume normal activity on Thursday.

"We believe the issue was caused by a failed high voltage underground cable under tarmac which had not previously shown any cause for concern.

"We will now complete a full investigation and, as part of this, have had specialist contractors on site to access the cable so we can inspect it.

"As a result of overheating related to a transformer on a back-up system for a small area of our emergency lighting which activated when the mains supply was unavailable, some smoke was emitted and the situation was monitored by the fire service and our estates team.

"Patients remained safe and cared for appropriately throughout the duration of the power failure and we were able to return to normal activity the following day.

"A large number of outpatient appointments were cancelled as a result of the incident, although some clinics did go ahead, so we are currently reviewing how many patients were seen and those who weren’t so we can rebook them as quickly as possible.

"The hospital has UPS, and other battery backup, for the equipment required to support patients who are critically unwell.

"In addition, while important parts of the hospital lost power on Wednesday other parts of the hospital (including all our intensive care units and theatres) continued to have mains power supply.

"The back-up generators provide protection against power cuts to the supply into the hospital grounds.

"The reason one part of our hospital lost power and light (whilst others maintained these) was that one of the high voltage cables which transfer electricity within the hospital failed.

"There are arrangements which allow power to be routed ‘around’ a broken cable, but these take some time to implement."

They added that patients' appointments and operations would be rebooked "according to clinical need."