24 June 2026

Queen Alexandra Hospital has declared a critical incident (Wednesday 24 June) following the failure of several chiller units supporting critical infrastructure during the ongoing heatwave. 

The loss of cooling capacity has led to elevated temperatures in a number of areas across the Trust, affecting our digital systems and critical clinical services, including theatres, cardiac catheter laboratories (cath labs), and diagnostic scanning facilities. Engineers are already on site working to restore affected systems and minimise disruption to patient care.  

Whilst our patients and staff remain safe, we are doing everything we can to ensure any disruption to care is limited and get our services back up and running as quickly as possible. Some planned care and appointments have been stood down until the issues have been resolved. Patients will be contacted if their care is impacted, so can continue to attend appointments unless they hear from us. If attending an appointment, please limit the number of people with you and ensure you bring plenty of water as the hospital is very hot.  

Mark Orchard, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, said: 

"We would like to reassure our patients and communities that despite the current challenges, essential and emergency services remain available for anyone who needs them.   “The unprecedented pressures created by the current heatwave, combined with the failure of a number of our chiller units, have led to significant disruption across several of our services. Our teams are working hard to repair the affected equipment, restore systems safely and ensure we continue to provide safe care for our patients.” 

Essential services remain available for anyone who needs them. If you require urgent medical help, please contact NHS 111 or dial 999. If you do need to attend the emergency department, please come alone or only bring one person with you and bring plenty of water with you as you may be waiting longer than normal. 

To help ensure services remain available for those who need them most, we encourage our local community to consider using alternative healthcare options for non-urgent medical concerns, including community pharmacies, GP practices, urgent treatment centres and NHS 111. 

You can also support us by collecting loved ones who are ready to leave hospital. Prompt and safe discharges will help free up beds for patients requiring urgent treatment and support us in response to the ongoing incident.