FIREFIGHTERS have been tackling a small electrical fire at the the Royal Berkshire Hospital just hours after pumping out water that leaked into its basement.

The road leading to the car park off Craven Road was closed as firefighters tackled the fire.

Patients did not have to be evacuated because of the blaze and all roads have now reopened.

The fire is the second incident at the town's hospital today after the Battle Block at the hospital was affected by flooding in the basement in the early hours of the morning,.

Efforts were being made to get the hospital's generator back up and running.

As of 5.45pm this afternoon, Mary Sherry, chief operating officer for the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that power was back up and running on North Block.

She said: "Currently, we now have full power on North Block, with remaining power issues on Battle Block, which will be managed through the evening and in to tomorrow if necessary to ensure patient safety and care is not compromised.

"Patients on Whitley Ward impacted by the smoke from the isolated fire earlier today have now been returned to their ward. Patients from the Coronary Care Unit, will remain on the Lodden Ward, till tomorrow whilst clinical cleaning takes place and the area is ventilated to ensure the safe return of patients."

Crews from Caversham Road and Whitley Wood were called at four o'clock in the morning to the Trust after an underground leak had flooded the generator room and main switchboard room.

Crew Manager, Charlie Bell, from Caversham Road, said: "There was flooding at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. They just had a major under ground leak into the basement where all the electricity for the west part of the hospital is.

"They are still out of power since about four o'clock it happened. It flooded the generator room as well as the main switchboard room.

"We got it under control as we have pumped out all the excess water in the basement and we have only left them with a minimum leak to handle.

"We were pumping for hours from half past four in the morning to half past eight. We must have pumped thousands of litres."

Two engines from Caversham Road, three pumps and the operational support unit from Whitley Wood were in attendance.

Matthew Pittam, spokesman for Scottish Southern Energy, said: "Basically what happened there was a flood and it has impacted the equipment in the hospital, They have got their own generator on site so the flood they would have had would have been from their own electric source.

"We got a call from the fire crews just after five o'clock this morning and we were on site to make sure that all of our equipment was working. We were off site by 6.55am."