A hospital's casualty department has taken on new staff after patient numbers almost doubled.

People visiting Brighton's Royal Sussex County Hospital accident and emergency department have been forced to wait for hours after a sudden influx of patients stretched resources to the limit.

A spokesman for the Brighton Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex, said it was mystery why so many people turned up at casualty over the weekend.

He said July was not usually such a busy month.

On Friday, casualty was flooded with 73 admissions - 40 more than usual.

The spokesman said: "We did have an unusually high number of emergencies on Friday and again on Saturday.

"They were just general medical emergencies, chest pains, asthma attacks. It puts added pressure on beds in the hospital.

"Waits in accident and emergency have been longer than normal.

"This time of year things can get busier because of the increase in the number of visitors to the town.

"People staying in Brighton are obviously not registered with a GP here so have to go to casualty. This puts pressure on us. It seems to have been busier this weekend than normal but we had an extra person on each shift to help."

Nine trained nursing staff were working on every shift during the weekend.