UK to get two more field hospitals to cope with coronavirus

Birmingham’s NEC and the GMEX in Manchester may be converted into field hospitals within weeks if required, according to reports.

Two further coronavirus field hospitals are being built at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) and Manchester’s Central Convention Centre.

NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens told the daily Downing Street press briefing that the venues were being transformed to cope with the expected spike in cases ‘with further such hospitals to follow’.

Earlier this week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who is now in self-isolation with mild symptoms, unveiled the first NHS Nightingale field hospital at London’s ExCel Centre with 4,000 beds.

The Midlands venue could hold up to 5,000 beds if required, while the GMEX could hold as many as 1,000.

Sir Simon said: ‘I have given the go-ahead to the building of these NHS Nightingale hospitals at the Birmingham NEC and the Manchester Central Convention centre with further such hospitals to follow.’

For all the latest news and updates on Coronavirus, click here.

For our Coronavirus live blog click here.

He added that across England there are now 33,000 hospital beds available to treat coronavirus patients.

Currently, there are 6,200 confirmed Covid-19 patients being treated in English hospitals and he said that number is ‘only bound to rise in the coming days’.

It comes as work started on a temporary mortuary at Birmingham Airport, with space for up to 12,000 bodies as part of plans for a worst-case scenario.

Furthermore, the children’s A&E department has been closed at Birmingham’s Good Hope Hospital in a bid to ‘increase coronavirus capacity’.

The hospital, serving a population of 450,000 across north Birmingham, neighbouring Sutton Coldfield and parts of Staffordshire, had already suspended patient visits.

A trust spokeswoman said the need to manage Covid-19 patients had meant the ‘immediate redeployment of our staff to areas of most need’.

Concluding the press conference, Sir Simon said: ‘Unfortunately, pressure on the NHS is going to intensify over the coming weeks – there’s no doubt about that before things hopefully begin to improve – and so this is going to be a time when a lot of our frontline staff are going to be in highly stressful and pressurised circumstances.

‘I think what they would want me to say to the rest of the country is know this: that everybody is pulling out all of the stops to do the right thing and if you can help too, by following the measures that have been set out, staying at home, you will save lives.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.