SUSSEX hospitals will share more than £5 million to help accident and emergency departments to cope with increased demand this winter.

The Department of Health has allocated £55.98 million of the £100 million A&E capital funding, outlined in the spring Budget by the Chancellor, with the four trusts responsible for Sussex patients all receiving close to or in excess of £1 million.

Union bosses welcomed the additional funding but said it was just a “drop in the ocean” for accident and emergency departments that were now under severe pressure 52 weeks a year.

The funding has been shared between 70 NHS hospitals including The Conquest Hospital in St Leonards, Eastbourne District Hospital, East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, Worthing Hospital and Brighton and Sussex Universities Hospital Trust , which is responsible for the The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and The Princess Royal in Haywards Heath. St Richard’s is among 24 hospitals around the country to receive the full £1 million investment.

It is the second funding boost for the Royal Sussex under the new Chief executive Marianne Griffiths. Last month it was that £30 million wasannounced for an emergency floor to improve the layout of A&E and bring in extra beds. The trust was put special measures last year with long waits, delays and bed shortages in A&E among the concerns raised by inspectors.

In February it was revealed more than 700 patients waited for 12 hours or more in A&E in just one month while latest figures reveal all three main Sussex trusts are still failing to hit national targets.

The Government said the funding will be used by hospitals to meet the 95 per cent standard of admitting, transferring, or discharging patients within four hours by reducing the number of patients using A&E unnecessarily and co-locating GP practices within A&E departments.

GMB regional organiser Gary Palmer said: “Of course the GMB welcomes any additional funding but it has to be proven to be additional funding and not just funding moved from a different department or from a different health budget.

“Our accident and emergency departments are under pressure 24/7, 52 weeks a year, I don’t think there are the peaks and troughs that there once were and what we want to see happen is that A&E departments are fully funded all of the time.

“This additional funding is just a drop in the ocean, what we would like to see is adequate funding to ensure that staff have sufficient support and we can have an NHS we can all be proud of.”