Two hospitals hit by power cuts overnight

The Lister Hospital was affected by a power cut after an underground electricity cable was damaged

An electrical fault led to power cuts at two of its hospitals, an NHS trust said.

The Lister and the New QEII hospitals were affected by the outage, the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust said.

UK Power Networks' website, confirmed power was disrupted just before 20:00 GMT on Monday, due to a fault to a high voltage underground electricity cable.

The firm said several thousand customers in an area between Letchworth Garden City and Hitchin were affected before electricity was restored.

The NHS trust said: "We immediately enacted our contingency and business continuity plans including using generators and other measures to keep our patients safe."

Maternity services remained open during the power cut.

It said power had now been restored to both hospital sites including A&E and patients should attend appointments as normal.

In a statement, UK Power Networks apologised to customers, adding: "Hospitals usually have an alternative power supply in case of emergencies, and we always advise premises which rely on power to invest in back-up supplies for occasional incidents like this."

A spokeswoman confirmed power was restored in stages with "the final one back on by 22:20", adding there was a further, short power cut from 00:28 GMT to 00:52 GMT on Tuesday.