NHS Nightingale hospital opens at Excel in London

[Bluewavescrashing]

It's absolutely vast. How will it be staffed? Will it work?

I keep wondering & think it must be along the “economies of scale” lines. Massive oxygen deliveries. Staff about to cover more patients in more open wards.

On the news the other day there was mention of asking hospitals outside London for staff to volunteer, and many were likely to live in the hotels serving the centre around it. There's also been discussion about one ICU trained nurse to six patients with assistants, and the NHS and army having set this up together were debating whether the excel would take covid 19 patients only, or would provide ICU care for anyone needing a bed, ie car crash victims, heart attacks etc. The army were said to be unsure of that thinking the centre needed one brief and one expertise only, with non covid patients staying in hospitals.

Its probably going to be a case of learning on the job with procedure developing as they gain experience, no one's ever done this before.

I really hope it's successful but it will be a very challenging environment to work in. Extremely noisy. Huge numbers of staff who are untrained or hurriedly trained.

The army has done an amazing job setting it up so quickly and well. I hope they and others who helped are really proud of how well they've done. I hope it doesn't need to be used, but sadly I suspect it will be in use quite soon.

There have been all sorts of hints on staffing and it looks like a mixed group; ICU nurses pairing with non (from various hospitals), the final year med students filling gaps back at the hospitals and in Nightingale, army medics, first aid qualified cabin crew...

Prince Charles is opening it, I don't get it, you don't need a opening ceremony with someone to declare it open.

there are lots of NHS staff whose day jobs do not currently exist. All non urgent surgery is cancelled so all the pre op staff, operating staff, recovery staff, rehab staff are no longer needed for those roles. All those specialties had nurses, doctors, ahp s etc. There are Locum s/ bank staff/ recently retired staff. I am not saying it will not be challenging but I am sure there is a plan in place. A colleague of mine was contacted directly ( she had taken early retirement) by NHS England, her PIN was reactivated, all her checks are completed and she is waiting to be' matched' to somewhere that needs her. It has been very efficient.

Reminds me a bit of the army medical team that dealt with the medical disaster at Belsen, calling on medical students and any other pairs of hands they could find and having to convert buildings and work out what to do as they went along. It's a massive challenge and incredible they have it up and running so fast.

Prince Charles opened it by video link.

I was pleasantly surprised they were able to get it ready so quickly.
I thought it was only for Coronavirus patients as you’d keep non infectious patients away from them surely.