Staff at Basildon Hospital fought a fire in the hospital laundry room and stopped it from causing any serious damage.

Alarms went off in a small cleaning room and two fire crews were called to the hospital at about 7am yesterday.

But staff used fire extinguishers to put out the flames before the fire crews arrived.

A spokeswoman from the hospital said: "The flames were so small. Nodody was hurt and the fire didn't cause any damage."

Station commander Nigel Dilley said: "It's often a false alarm when we get called to Basildon Hospital about fires. This is the first time there has actually been a fire.

"We think it was a build up of dust in the cleaning system with the heat from the dryers that caused the fire. One of the staff said they saw a small spark."