A leaking pipe was the cause of a water shortage at Medway Maritime Hospital yesterday.

The hospital in Gillingham had to issue a plea for patients wishing to visit accident and emergency to use other walk-in centres because there was no drinking water.

Patients at the hospital were provided with bottled water after the outage was reported on Sunday morning.

People requiring the use of services such as accident and emergency were asked to use other medical centres instead.

The hospital first started experiencing intermittent problems with the supply on Friday evening.

Everything was back to normal on Saturday but at 8:30am on Sunday, the site manager started to get calls about problems with the water from across the hospital.

A hospital spokeswoman said: "The estate team got to work finding out what the problem was and found there was a leak in a pipe.

"The water was back on by 11:30am but we needed to be sure it was safe to drink."

There are two water tanks on the hospital grounds but one had been out of use and the other had emptied because of the leak.

Microbiologists checked for anything that could have caused infections before giving the all clear to drink the water.

The spokeswoman said: "We've put new measures in place including electronic monitors which will give us an early warning when the water level in the tanks drops."

The second tank has had a full clean and has been brought back into service, doubling the hospital's water capacity.