20/01/2017 South East Today

One of the south-east's biggest hospital trusts has been

on the highest possible state of alert since Christmas,

meaning patient safety has been compromised every day

And there's a warning to patient groups that the Royal Sussex

Hospital in Brighton is expecting to continue in that

Our health Correspondent Mark Norman has more.

Another week, another insight into the pressure the NHS is under.

This trust has been at the heart of the highest state of alert every

The impact is being felt by patients.

I was taken to A and I had to sleep in A

I was just sitting there and said, any

There are four levels of alert, Opel 4 is the highest,

The trust told us its staff were working

hard to give patients the emergency care they needed and it was making

improvements to help with the flow of patients.

However, the impact on patients is concerning some.

Some who have been in hospital, as soon

as they are ready to go home, or likely to be asked to go home,

the support systems in the community,

whether it is family or friends or a service

that they pay for, provided by the local council, they are

At least three other trusts in Kent and Sussex went

to the highest level of alert last week.

All our trusts failed to hit the specific target for A

At Durham Valley, they even took to social media to encourage former

staff members to come back and cover shifts.

For our members, they would say they are at the end of their

Most organisations across the system had been working at high

While Brighton is not in the worst performing trust, it is under

pressure and is telling patient groups it doesn't expect to come out

A Sussex teenager who admitted selling thousands of pounds worth

of fake festival tickets has been sentenced to 21 months in a young

Benjamin Hyland-Ward from Saltdean, left hundreds of people disappointed

after taking ?60,000 for tickets that he failed

to produce for the Bestival event on the Isle of Wight

The 19-year-old had pleaded guilty at Lewes Crown Court.

Two members of a drugs gang have been jailed following the discovery

of almost ?8 million worth of cannabis in Sittingbourne.

57-year-old Thomas Cullen from Liverpool was sentenced

and 48-year-old Joseph Graham to 6 years.

Kent Police discovered the drugs when they searched an industrial

Lewes MP Maria Caulfield says she "dreads" the prospect of returning

to what Southern Rail calls a "normal timetable".

A full service is expected to be restored from Tuesday next week

after the train drivers' union ASLEF suspended industrial action.

It's being claimed that Kent grammar schools are forcing some

children to leave halfway through their A-level studies

because their Year 12 grades were not considered good enough.

Parents have told us their children have been made to feel

like failures, separated from their friends, and given just

weeks to find a new place for their final year at

There are 32 grammar schools in Kent.

In the last year, 266 Year 12s, or students in the lower sixth

form, left by the end of the academic year.

Invicta Grammar School had the highest number leave,

Our education correspondent Bryony MacKenzie has more.

Selective education not just from primary to secondary,

but in many cases in year 12 as well.

But for one parent who wanted to remain anonymous,

their child didn't reach the required grades at AS-level

They claim the policy at Invicta Grammar left them

We felt not completing her education with her peers would be detrimental

She just needed more support, mainly with revision techniques.

Whether they acted legally or not, their treatment of our daughter,

and the harshness of pastoral care we received, was shocking.

There is no legislation that allows them to remove students on the

grounds of performance halfway through a course.

Students are asked to sign a home-school agreement at

the beginning of the sixth form course, but that actually

Invicta's sixth form learning agreement states:

If a student is allowed to continue despite serious reservations...

It's a common policy but not one that works at every school.

A lot of them make significant improvements between year 12

and the end of year 13, and I think schools need to have

faith in their own students and to push them hard

Invicta Girls' Grammar denies the claims and says students

are supported and advised about what is best for them.

Bryony MacKenzie, BBC South East Today, Maidstone.

And Brighton have gone back to the top of the Championship this

Anthony Knockaert scored both goals, after 34 minutes and once again five

The national weather forecast coming up, but first let's get the picture

in the south-east with Rachel Mackley.

Lots of sunshine but bitterly cold. Very little changes at the weekend,

dry and cold overnight. It will be chilly during the day as well

despite the sunshine. Tonight, clear skies, temperatures plummeting. -1

minus two Celsius in cities, Google spot a tasty dropping as low as

minus five Celsius. Bitterly cold as we start the day Saturday. The wind

now coming up from the south easterly direction, it is still very

cold. Lots of sunshine and by the afternoon we will see highs of two

or three Celsius. Wrap up warm and keep the heating on. On Sunday, more

of the same. Here is the outlook. feel cooler. Can we keep it going

until the start of the new week? I suspect we can. Unconfirmed about --

concerned about the fog around. Here is Helen with the national picture.

Good evening. The weather is upon us. The cloud has made all the

difference this week in