Children's hospital ward closes

A new children's unit is planned at Brighton's main hospital

A ward at a children's hospital in Brighton is to be closed because of staff shortages.

The Royal Alexandra Hospital's 14-bed Taaffe Ward could be closed for several weeks, with patients moved to the hospital's three other wards.

The hospital has also cut the number of operations carried out but management said only surgery with short waiting lists was being affected.

The action has been taken because of sickness and maternity leave.

'Not a new issue'

Clinical Director John Trounce said the hospital in Dyke Road was in the process of recruiting more nurses and as soon as they were in place activity would be back to normal.

He said: "Some short-term measures have been put in place to make sure we can provide access to children's services at the Alex for the maximum number of children.

"As a result of this we have temporarily reduced the number of operations we carry out each day, but only in the specialities where waiting lists are extremely short.

"All paediatric emergency services are being sustained.

"This is not a new issue for the Alex - the old-style small Victorian wards mean nursing care is delivered by smaller teams, where one or two vacancies have a large impact.

"That is one of the many reasons why we are building a new children's unit on the Royal Sussex County Hospital site."