An investigation is continuing into the cause of a major fire at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital in the early afternoon of 2 January which saw 79 patients and around 200 staff evacuated.
As it raged a two-hour long staged evacuation was undertaken; with each ward reportedly evacuated “smoothly and swiftly” in its turn. Two patients in theatre and three in recovery were safely transferred to the nearby Royal Brompton, accompanied by specialist staff.
The following day there were suggestions the fire had started on the building’s fourth floor, but the London Fire Brigade said until investigators had produced a detailed report neither the source nor the cause would be certain. Its investigation is still ongoing, although the brigade has said the incident “does not appear to have been suspicious”.
Hospital staff and management worked through the night for an area unaffected to be open for staff, ensuring they could contact patients awaiting appointments. A second statement, issued after senior management staff had walked through the damaged area the next morning, said initial indications suggested the damage was “not as bad as first suspected”.
A week after the fire three of the hospital’s seven inpatient wards were back up and running, while the day unit and radiotherapy department on the other side of the hospital, which serve an estimated 100 patients a day, had both opened earlier in the week It appears the fire may have started in a plant room, destroying the roof on the Stewarts Grove (west) side of the hospital, some distance from the chemotherapy and radiotherapy facilities and a number of hospital apartments on the eastern Dovehouse Street side. While the fire had not significantly damaged the inpatient wards below, a Royal Marsden spokesperson said smoke, and water used to fight it, had caused damage; the extent was still being determined. She said: “Initial suggestions are that little of our more expensive medical equipment has been damaged, but our operating theatres (some of which are below ground) may not be back in action for some time.”
Following the fire a number of patients continued receiving treatment at the Royal Brompton and at the Trust’s second hospital in Sutton, Surrey.
