I AM writing in response to Tanya Wardman’s letter regarding the location and accessibility of A&E within redevelopment plans for The Royal Sussex County Hospital (The Argus, October 5).

A&E was placed in its current location at the side of the hospital site, with direct access from Bristol Gate rather than at ground level on Eastern Road, so that it is next to the operating theatres on Level 5 and the Intensive Care Unit on Level 7 of the Thomas Kemp Tower.

By keeping A&E where it is, we will limit the time it takes to transfer seriously ill patients to theatre and to intensive care beds.

In addition, patients with life-threatening injuries flown in via the new helipad on top of the tower will have rapid access to A&E’s resuscitation area, our new neurosurgical theatres and emergency imaging facilities on Level 5 via the tower’s new trauma lift.

If we were to relocate A&E to the front of the new building on Eastern Road, we would be left with nowhere to put a main entrance except the current location of A&E, which would create access problems for far more patients.

Stage One of the new development will include a new main entrance to the hospital at ground floor level on Eastern Road, which will be directly linked to lifts at the base of the Thomas Kemp Tower by an underground walkway.

The new main entrance will also be directly linked to a new underground car park – almost 400 parking spaces are being created for use by patients and visitors only. Visitors to A&E will therefore be able to park their car underground, take a lift to the main hospital entrance and then access the tower.

After much discussion with staff, patients and the ambulance service, it has been agreed that the benefits of the way in which we plan to redevelop the site greatly outweigh any disadvantages of the current location of A&E.

Duane Passman, director of 3Ts, estates and facilities, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals