Two hospital restaurants are set to close for refurbishment.

The Spice of Life restaurants at St Richard's Hospital in Spitalfield Lane, Chichester, and Worthing Hospital, in Lyndhurst Road, will close on March 6.

They are not expected to reopen until early summer.

Restaurateurs and caterers were invited to run the main restaurants briefly last December. This was to work out what improvements and changes could be made.

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Hospital officials are now evaluating proposals with staff health and wellbeing, environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility in mind.

As part of the refurbishment, the hospitals will introduce 24-hour staff-only rest areas.

These will have vending machines where staff members can buy meals that can be reheated either in the rest area, which will have microwaves, or elsewhere.

A spokesman for the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust said: "We hope to keep any disruption to a minimum and thank you for your understanding and patience as we make the much-needed and exciting improvements to our catering facilities."

While the restaurants are closed, staff and visitors can use the existing outlets still open at both hospitals including Costa Coffee, WHSmith, League of Friends, as well as Doctors Orders at St Richard’s.