Southampton hospital fire impact will continue for months says Chief Medical Officer
Over 200 beds are out of use at University Hospital Southampton following the fire
A week on from the Southampton hospital fire, the Hampshire Chief Medical Officer's telling us the impact will continue for months.
University Hospital Southampton remains in a major incident following the fire last Sunday and have lost around 200 beds.
Dr Lara Alloway, Chief Medical Officer's telling us the fire was "incredibly severe" and has caused "huge damage".
She said: "We remain in a major incident both for Southampton Hospital and the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight following the fire on Sunday.
"The impact is certainly not over and we have lost, through the fire, significant numbers of beds for people in the hospital.
"The staff have been amazing and 500 patients were moved within 40 minutes on Sunday, which meant that everybody was safe.
"That has meant going into areas that normally would not be looking after patients, such as other hospitals that are further away from where they live.
"We are grateful for people's understanding and we appreciate how difficult that was.
"For the people in these other hospitals where it's obviously much more crowded than it might have been.
"What we're doing is trying to make sure that people who are ready for discharge are discharged as quickly as possible.
"We are sometimes moving people to temporary placements, and perhaps with slightly different care than they might have expected.
"We're also trying to encourage people to only come to the hospitals when they absolutely need them and to use all other NHS services, which may mean they don't need to go to the hospital."