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 lasting six hours at two hospitals, an NHS trust said.

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

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 at 02:11 on Tuesday.

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."