Exeter and Sunderland to get new Nightingale Hospitals

They will be the country's sixth and seventh Nightingale Hospitals fighting coronavirus.

Two new Nightingale Hospitals are set to be built to help the fight against coronavirus, England’s Chief Nursing Officer has confirmed.

Ruth May said the new facilities – which will take the number of Nightingales in the UK to seven – would ‘soon’ be built in Sunderland and Exeter in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

She explained: ‘We have freed up more than 30,000 beds, the equivalent of 50 general hospitals, in the past few weeks and that’s before opening the extraordinary NHS Nightingale Hospital in East London. I am pleased to announced today that alongside the new hospitals in Birmingham, Manchester, Harrogate and Bristol, I can confirm that Sunderland and Exeter will soon see Nightingale hospitals in their communities too.

‘These extra hospitals, if we need them, will be part of the NHS’ nationwide response to coronavirus, the greatest health care challenge the NHS has ever faced.’

London’s NHS Nightingale Hospital saw its first patients arrive earlier this week, as the country battled an increasing death toll which today neared 9,000 amid a nationwide lockdown.

Ms May was speaking at the daily coronavirus press conference, at which the public was again urged to stay at home over easter, to help the NHS.

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Paying tribute to frontline staff who had died after contracting Covid-19, she said the NHS ‘feel their loss deeply’.

She continued: ‘Dedicated, skilled, professional NHS staff calmly dealing with the mounting numbers of patients with coronavirus. They are frank about the toll it takes, both physical and emotional.

‘And of course nurses, healthcare assistants, midwives, and other NHS staff are now among the victims of this coronavirus. Some have lost their lives.

‘The NHS is a family and we feel their loss deeply.’

Speaking about the Nightingale unit for the North East, Dame Jackie Daniel, chief executive of Newcastle Hospitals which is leading the project, said: ‘This new hospital represents a truly remarkable and inspiring collaborative effort.

‘None of us have ever faced a challenge this great or this complex. It is testing our NHS like never before but I sincerely hope and believe that when this pandemic is over, we will all look back on what we have achieved with great pride.’

Meanwhile, health secretary Matt Hancock said 15 testing drive-through centres had been opened across the UK to enable more testing for frontline staff.

‘I can announce today that we have capacity for all key social care staff and NHS staff who need to be tested to get those tests,’ he said.

Mr Hancock announced that two more ‘Lighthouse mega-labs’ were on track in Cheshire and Glasgow, after he opened the first one in Milton Keynes on Thursday.

He added that AstraZeneca and GSK were also opening another testing facility in Cambridge.

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