There are ten temporary critical care hospitals being set up by the National Health Service and British Army as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Building has started at the temporary NHS hospital in the Scottish Events Campus (SEC), Glasgow.
The hospital is named after Scottish nurse Louisa Jordan, who died in service during the First World War.
Over 400 contractors are working alongside nearly 150 NHS Scotland clinicians and operational staff to establish the new NHS Louisa Jordan. It will provide an initial 300 beds to help safeguard Scotland’s NHS during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, say the Scottish Government.
Thank you to our army colleagues for their support on the @NHSLouisaJordan feasibility study! NHS workers and contractors are now on site, working around the clock to put these measures in place, to make sure we are ready if required. #COVIDー19
— NHS Louisa Jordan (@NHSLouisaJordan) April 3, 2020
Scottish Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has praised all staff who are working at the site to develop this new facility.
“I want to send my sincere thanks to the many clinical, operational and construction staff who have been on site at the SEC to construct this new NHS Scotland hospital. They are working together, under exceptional circumstances, to deliver a clinically safe and fit for purpose hospital that if required, will provide extra capacity for NHS Scotland.”
Around the UK
As the 2020 Covid-19 epidemic was beginning to take hold in the United Kingdom, the governments and public health services of the four home nations started planning the creation of temporary large-scale critical care hospitals to provide cover for the projected increase in patients likely to require this type of treatment.
The initiative is being carried out in coordination with the British Armed Forces’ COVID Support Force, under the Military Aid to the Civil Authorities provisions, as part of Operation Rescript.
Very scary….very scary indeed, looking at 15,000 critically ill patients nursed in conference centres and tents….the face a pandemic the world did not take quite as seriously as it should have and not quite quickly enough.
I thought these new facilities were to take less serious patients to who still needed hospital treatment to relieve pressure on the permanent hospitals ?
Here in London we’ve been getting loads of news coverage on the Nightingale hospital just set up in the Excel Centre potentially with up to 4,000 beds. That one is being reported as exactly the opposite of what you say. Only patients needing to be on a ventilator will be admitted there! I’m assuming these other huge facilities are the same.
Yes Julian these are very much hot covid hospitals, as such they will be incredibly difficult and damaging (mentally) places to work, with some personal danger as well ( health workers are at high risk due to the large level of exposure to the virus from treating the sick) . I hope that every staff member of these centres gets some form of formal recognition, such as an British empire medal.
These nightingale hospitals are indeed hot hospital intended to be pressure relief valves for the regional NHS acute trusts so no one hospital will be overwhelmed. They are going to be traumatic and hard places to work, but I think you underestimate the professionalism and bravery of my colleagues. I’m an ICU clinician with 23 years full time experience. We have worked through many winters and many flu epidemics, we are used to sadly getting by with inadequate capacity, inadequate resources and not enough staff sadly and although the scale of this outbreak potentially is astronomical we are unbowed, not… Read more »
I do believe they are going to be staffing these with quite a mix, included the back on the register and rushed onto the register types ( returners and students) and not just hardened ITU/military staff. Unfortunately I do think this is going to be so fare beyond what we have had to manage before (and like you my memory goes back to such lovely flu years as 2000. Also we have a growing evidence base around the risk to clinicians of nursing covid 19 patients with a high viral load. I don’t remember a flu year where we ever… Read more »
I doubt we will get anything julian, no one works in the NHS for rewards, that much is obvious after 14 years with non existent or below inflation pay rises. Since 2006 in my case. I had hoped outcome would be maybe a pay rise, maybe more investment in the NHS, maybe increasing ward bed numbers and crucially ICU capacity. Maybe reinstate the nurse bursary back to full so that dedicated people can afford to train as nurses, and other health care professionals. Sadly though I dont think there will be any more money left to do any of these… Read more »
I think we have more chance of a reward that has no cost than actual practical support to the system that would have an ongoing cost.
A thank you letter for all the unpaid overtime would be a thing. I could frame it…..
Jonathon, HMG war planned a pandemic in a detailed exercise in 2016. It was listed as one of 3 potential disasters that had the ability to radically change UK life and cause mass casualties. The exercise outcomes were strong advice to 1) increase ICU and critical care capacity above the diabolical low numbers currently. UK has a lower proportion of critical care beds pre coronavirus then Crostia or Romania. 2) stockpile in huge quantities PPE, that is compliant with WHO guidelines so hundreds of millions of ffp3 masks, full respirators, long fluid repellant gowns, visors and goggles. This was not… Read more »
Cygnus? I read about that Mr Bell.
Respect.
If nothing else, hopefully the UK response to CV19 will highlight to the people of Scotland inclined to believe SNP lies that we are in fact better together and stronger together. The NHS has its many faults, I know as I have been a faithful NHS ICU worker for 23+ years but it is at times like this that the NHSs true strength comes out. A unified single health service centrally controlled able to call upon the full power of the state if needed. Meanwhile in America each state is fighting and in competition with each other for precious resources,… Read more »
It is difficult to conceive but the UK and sll other countries must fsce up to potentially high losses of life. To put this in perspective Spanish flu killed ( according to one estimste) around 228,000 people. And this just after the losses of Ww1.
Sorry just to clarify – 228000 in UK alone.
228,00 is a worst case scenario and what would happen if we dont flatten the curve.
Yes..unfortunately taken world wide this will have a very good chance as being just as bad as the Spanish flu. We are only a couple of months into this pandemic, we and the world has a very long road ahead over the next year or two if we are lucky. Questions: 1) how long can a western nation keep its population isolated and economically inactive… 2) what is going to happen in second and third world nations, with poor healthcare, sanitation, housing and populations with poor immune systems due to disease and malnutrition…. Remember covid 19 is a new disease… Read more »
I think we are entering a new political and economics era. C-19 will have an step change effect on society comparable to that of the Plague in the 14th century. We are being reminded that we are part of Mother nature and need to respect and work with Her. Grace under pressure is our best weapon now.
So, the SNP even have to politiscise the naming of a hospital, just to differentiate Scotland from the rest of the UK.
..Scum, everyone of them.
WTF have they renamed the hospital for?
This is not a Scottish branding exercise.
I am a Scot living south of the border and feel totally embarrassed by this.
What happened to ” We’re all in it together “?
Whoever came up with this ridiculous and petty idea wants fuc#ing shot. NIGHTINGALE FUC# WIT