Police in arson probe at Conquest Hospital

120 firefighters, including teams from Bexhill, fought the blaze which broke out at 4.45am.

Police and fire investigators spent the rest of the day examining the scene and police forensic experts were there all day Wednesday.

As the Observer went to press the cause of the fire was unknown, but police were describing it as suspicious.

Damage is estimated at 300,000.

Nobody was injured and only ten patients had to be moved when the fire broke out, evacuated from the assessment ward in the Accident and Emergency Department, below the kitchen, to the opposite end of the building.

FIRE FIGHTERS AT THE SCENEAccident and Emergency re-opened at 10.30am and the assessment ward at lunchtime.

Around 1,500 meals a day are prepared in the Conquest s kitchen, for staff and patients.

The plan is to keep using food brought over from Eastbourne until Monday, when the system will change to frozen meals being re-heated in specialist hostess trolleys, the standard practice in many other hospitals.

Police want anyone with information to contact Det Sgt Leighton Morgan, Hastings CID, on 0845 60 70 999, or call Crimestoppers confidentially, 0800 555 111.