Britain’s deserted Nightingale hospitals: Doctors and nurses at facilities built to relieve strain on the NHS wait for patients to arrive as they STILL lie empty despite rising Covid cases amid new mutant strain
-> ExCeL centre – the first site opened by NHS England amid the crisis, is seen practically deserted today
-> It would be the largest ICU in Europe if operational, capable of providing up to 500 intensive care beds
-> The venue is just one of England’s nightingale hospitals lying in wait to be fully utilised, along with a site in Manchester, open for ‘non-Covid’ care, and sites in Exeter and Harrogate open for ‘specialist diagnostics’
Henry Martin – Mail Online Dec 20, 2020
Nightingale hospitals are still lying empty despite the rising coronavirus cases and fears over a new highly-infectious mutant strain.
East London’s ExCeL centre – the first site opened by NHS England amid the crisis, is seen practically deserted in pictures taken today. The site would be the largest intensive care unit in Europe if fully operational, capable of providing up to 500 intensive care beds, reports have claimed.
The venue is just one of England’s nightingale hospitals lying in wait to be fully utilised, along with a site in Manchester, open for ‘non-Covid’ care, and sites in Exeter and Harrogate open for ‘specialist diagnostics’.
It has been suggested the hospitals are largely deserted, despite Boris Johnson‘s dramatic decision to plunge a third of those in England under tough Tier 4 measures from Sunday.
In the first wave of the pandemic, seven Nightingale hospitals were built at a cost of £220million, but the NHS was largely able to cope so only two were used, with around 200 people treated. There has been speculation that the Nightingales could be used as centres to provide vaccinations.
Britain today reported a further 35,928 coronavirus cases as the mutant Covid strain causes a 94.8 per cent rise in infections. The spike in positive tests puts today’s figure at nearly double the 18,447 recorded last Sunday.
Official figures also revealed 326 more people have died after testing positive for the virus – more than double the 144 deaths reported this time last week. The 126 per cent rise in daily deaths comes after London and vast swathes of the home counties were thrust into a brutal Tier 4 lockdown due to a Covid variant running rampant in the south.
The strain – called ‘VUI – 202012/01’ – is 70 per cent more infectious and makes up 60 per cent of London’s new cases, Boris Johnson revealed yesterday. But while NHS bosses say problems posed by coronavirus – segregating wards, constantly using PPE and staff having to self-isolate – is adding new levels of pressure to how hospitals work, numbers show they are treating fewer patients than usual.
Pictured: The car park at the Excel Centre in East London. Data released this week still shows hospitals to be quieter than they were this time last year, as the second wave of coronavirus continues to bite and the number of Covid patients approaches levels seen in England’s peak in April. Click to enlarge
Data released this week still shows hospitals to be quieter than they were this time last year, as the second wave of coronavirus continues to bite and the number of Covid patients approaches levels seen in England’s peak in April.
Figures revealed there were 15,465 people in hospital with Covid in England on December 16, compared to 18,974 on the worst day in the spring. The supposed benefits of November’s lockdown appear to have worn off, with admissions rising again, and another wave of deaths likely to follow in the New Year.
But statistics suggest the health service is, overall, coping better with its workload than it did last winter. A greater proportion of ward beds are free, intensive care units have more room and A&E departments aren’t yet turning ambulances away more often than usual – with the exception of a bad day at one NHS trust in the Midlands.
And the occupancy figure does not take into account bolstered capacity at the mothballed Nightingale hospitals, which went unused after being built during the first wave in case wards were overrun with Covid, or the thousands of additional beds commandeered from the private sector for the same purpose.
The NHS is also benefitting from ‘record levels of staff’, according to the Department of Health, which is headed by Matt Hancock, boasted in August. The number of nurses in England has increased by 13,840 compared with last year, and the number of doctors has risen by 9,306, it said.
