{"id":206517,"date":"2020-04-30T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=206517"},"modified":"2020-05-04T07:47:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T07:47:04","slug":"why-do-so-many-nhs-nightingale-hospitals-remain-empty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=206517","title":{"rendered":"Why do so many NHS Nightingale hospitals remain empty?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Verity Bowman \u2013 The Daily Telegraph.co.uk April 29, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Looking like a scene from a dystopian science fiction movie \u2013 complete with \u201csafe spacing\u201d and wall mounted video \u2013 staff listen to an address at the opening of the NHS Nightingale in Birmingham. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Nightingale hospitals are opening across the UK, but as reports emerge of thousands of empty beds questions are being raised about the facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the Government ordered the construction of the hospitals on March 13, it seemed highly likely that the UK could be overwhelmed by the coronavirus crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scenes from northern Italy caused officials to worry the NHS would run out of intensive care beds and ventilators, or even that doctors could be forced to leave some patients to die.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now some officials believe their Nightingale hospital may never have to treat a Covid-19 patient – but where are these facilities? And why is the number of patients they are treating so low?<\/span><\/p>\n

Where are the hospitals located?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The NHS Nightingale Hospital based at the ExCeL conference centre<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, in east London, is now open, having been built in nine days.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eight other NHS Nightingale Hospitals have been announced so far \u2013 in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Harrogate, Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast and Bristol.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new facility at Manchester Conference Centre is expected to run on a significantly different model to that in London, comprising mainly “step-down” beds for Covid-19 patients on their way to being discharged from hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Telegraph <\/em>now understands that the military has drawn up plans<\/strong><\/span><\/a> to build 17 new coronavirus field hospitals.<\/span><\/p>\n

How many patients can they treat?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The NHS Nightingale hospital in east London has 4,000 beds, and it is understood that around 60\u00a0are currently being used. Last week, it was revealed that only 19 patients were admitted<\/strong><\/span><\/a> over the Easter weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially the facilities in Birmingham and Manchester will each have 500 beds, but the Manchester site will eventually have potential for 1,000 beds, with Birmingham housing twice that number.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bristol facility will be furnished with 300 beds at first, but could grow to 850 if required. The Harrogate hospital will have 500 beds in total.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are so many reportedly empty?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The West Midlands’ Nightingale Hospital has yet to admit any patients<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>more than a fortnight after becoming operational – with the region’s mayor saying: “I hope it stays that way.”<\/span><\/p>\n

This sentiment has been echoed across the board, with the boss of NHS Nightingale in the North East saying the facility will not be needed if people maintain social distancing rules. The 460-bed facility in Washington, Tyne and Wear, will only open to patients if hospitals in the North East are unable to cope with the influx of coronavirus patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the NHS has also roughly doubled its ICU capacity on its pre-existing locations to 1,555 beds. This increased capacity means many hospitals have not had to send their patients to a Nightingale facility.<\/span><\/p>\n

The low numbers of admissions to Nightingales could also be related to a strict entry criteria, which excludes the most frail patients. The hospitals usually cater towards younger and fitter patients suffering from the coronavirus, rather than those with severe cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The corporate media can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. The hospitals built across the country to deal with the \u2018pandemic\u2019 remain largely empty and unused<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206520,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206517\/revisions\/206520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}