PRESSURES on accident and emergency departments forced a hospital trust to make male and female patients share the same ward areas.

East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust reported 44 breaches of the rule which says men and women should be segregated into different bays.

Hospitals are fined £250 for each day they have a breach.

Most of the breaches were caused by demand for beds in A&E at the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards.

A trust spokeswoman said: “Building work to change the space available in the department will shortly be under way and by the start of winter, we will have new space available to reduce any further breaches.”

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and Western Sussex Hospitals |NHS Trust both reported no breaches over the same |period.

Hospitals are expected to provide separate sleeping, bathroom and toilet facilities for the different sexes.

Wards do not have to be single- sex, but patients should be kept in bays divided at the very least by a full-height partition.

Mental health exhibit open A MENTAL health awareness art exhibition is to be held throughout October.

The light-box installations were set up in Brighton’s Jubilee Square on Tuesday and will remain until October 28.

The drawings displayed are from a number of mental health group workshops.

Participants were asked to draw what terms such as “well-being, wellness and wellbeing zones” mean to them.

Entry to the light-box installations is free.