Soldiers descended upon London’s ExCel centre today to help complete the building’s transformation into the capital’s emergency coronavirus hospital.
Officers in uniform took to the international convention centre in Newham, East London, to assist construction workers and NHS staff in the final touches of the new Nightingale hospital as the UK tries to control the spread of the deadly virus which has now claimed the lives of 1,228 in the country.
Incredible images from inside the new hospital showed military personnel help workers in erecting cubicles and carrying equipment into the transformed centre- which is set to hold up to 4,000 COVID-19 patients and will initially have 500 beds.
Yesterday the nation was given their very first glimpse of the new field hospital as construction work began and and NHS staff helped unload medical equipment including oxygen tanks, heart monitors and defibrillators.
Soldiers arrive at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital at the ExCeL centre in Newham, East London, today as the hospital gears up to receive its first patients next week
Officers pull mats onto the floor and assist in the transformation of the new field hospital which will open to coronavirus patients on April 4
Ambulances line up outside the ExCel centre in London after construction work to transform the centre into the new NHS Nightingale hospital began yesterday
As military planners continue to work with Health Service officials to help create the new hospital in the capital, ambulances were seen lining up outside the centre to give up their services to the effort and help prepare for the hospital’s first patients who are set to arrive next week.
Extraordinary pictures from inside the new hospital, which will join two other hospital NHS Nightingale hospitals being built in Birmingham and Manchester, showed how hundreds of cubicles had been erected inside the vast space in an effort to facilitate for the thousands of patients due to arrive.
The hospital, which is expected to open next Saturday, April 4, will comprise of two wards which will each be able to care for 2,000 sick patients.
Yesterday medical staff were seen carrying out ‘dummy runs’, wheeling a model of a fake patient on a trolley into the ExCel exhibition centre.
Earlier this week, as the country saw the rate of infection continue to rise, NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens announced that 33,000 beds had now become available for coronavirus patients.
Soldiers roll out mats and assist in the final preparations for the new field hospital in London as the country continues to control the coronavirus outbreak
A planning meeting is underway as staff from the Royal Anglian Regiment and the Queen’s Gurkha Engineer Regiment arrive to the centre to help
Soldiers help transform the exhibition centre into the new Nightingale Hospital as the nation tries to cope with the rising number of Covid-19 patients
Soldiers help lay the flooring down as the new NHS Nightingale Hospital prepares for its first patients next week
The latest images come after it was revealed that the new hospital in London would be offering help desk staff an annual salary of £37,500 at the new site.
Online recruitment adverts showed how administration staff at the centre would be offered an annual salary that was £13,500 more than the average nurse’s starting salary of £24,000.
Those taking on the admin role would also be entitled to claim £15 a day for travel expenses and £10 for food, unlike frontline nurses.
A message on their job advertisement also assured staff that they would be provided with ‘full personal protective equipment (PPE)’.
On Friday Mayor Sadiq Khan warned Londoners that the situation could become ‘a lot worse’ over the next few weeks but ‘we are going to do what we can’.
He said: ‘I need to warn people that it is going to a lot worse over the next few weeks.
‘But we are going to do what we can for that eventuality. The number of people we are talking about are large and we need to be ready for that.
Soldiers help put up cubicles inside the new field hospital as the exhibition centre prepares for its first patients on April 4
Pictured: A firefighter stands outside the new NHS Nightingale Hospital at ExCeL London, as the country tries to cope with the number of coronavirus patients
Staff from the Metropolitan Police officers stand outside the new NHS Nightingale Hospital as final preparation are made
The new hospital, which is set to open next Saturday, will initially contain 500 beds and will be able tohold up to 4,000 COVID-19 patients
The new hospital in London will comprise of two wards which will each be able to house 2,000 sick patients
‘You will have seen the amount of dead already in London, we are two or three weeks ahead of the rest of the country and we know the peak is coming soon, three to five weeks away.’
Earlier today it was revealed that a petition to name Birmingham’s temporary field hospital after Crimean War nurse Mary Seacole had reached 1,000 signatures.
The NHS chief executive of the NHS Sir Simon Stevens confirmed the city’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) would be transformed into a site to treat coronavirus patients on Friday.
The NEC is one of the latest proposals for a temporary field hospital after the ExCeL site in London, which has been equipped with 4,000 beds to cope with any patient surge in the capital.
Speaking about the two new NHS Nightingale Hospitals due to open in Birmingham and Manchester, the NHS chief said: ‘It will take a monumental effort from everyone across the country to beat this epidemic, but the NHS is mobilising like never before to deliver care in new ways, to thousands more people – starting with the opening of the first NHS Nightingale in London later next week.
‘These are extraordinary steps the NHS is taking, and clinicians, managers and military planners are working day and night to create, equip and staff these hospitals from scratch and prepare for the surge that is likely to be coming.’