The Queen has thanked Armed Forces personnel working tirelessly to build London’s new NHS Nightingale Hospital.
The monarchy’s official Twitter account paid tribute to the military who have been on 15-hour shifts as they transform the ExCel convention centre into a 4,000 bed hospital for coronavirus patients.
‘Thank you to all those working hard to complete @NightingaleLDN Hospital, which will open this week to support patients with coronavirus,’ Buckingham Palace said.
Up to 200 personnel, including infantry from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment and Gurkhas, have been assisting contractors and NHS staff with its construction.
The monarchy’s official Twitter account paid tribute to the military who have been on 15-hour shifts as they transform the ExCel convention centre into a 4,000 bed hospital
The Queen on a phone call to Boris Johnson on March 25 for her weekly audience with the Prime Minister
The Queen is head of the Armed Forces and her cousin the Duke of Gloucester is Colonel in Chief of the Royal Anglian Regiment. The duke paid tribute to the soldiers involved.
He said in a statement released on Twitter: ‘In these challenging times, I am enormously proud of the Royal Anglian’s role in helping to build @NightingaleLDN. It is a testament to the @RAnglians’s dedication, teamwork and professionalism.’
He added: ‘Their commitment will make a huge difference to lives up and down the country.’
Construction began on the hospital last Wednesday and the facility is almost ready to begin taking in Covid-19 patients from hospitals across the capital.
Some soldiers helping to build the Nightingale hospital compared the coronavirus crisis to the Battle of the Somme.
Colonel Ashleigh Boreham, who has carried out two tours of Iraq and one of Afghanistan, said it was the biggest mission of his career.
As commanding officer of 256 City of London Field Hospital, he is in charge of military personnel working on the NHS facility.
Built in around ten days, it will have 500 beds for coronavirus patients when it opens this week. The number of beds will eventually increase to 4,000.
Built in around ten days, the Nightingale hospital in London will start taking in coronavirus patients this week
The Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, is Colonel in Chief of the Royal Anglian Regiment. He also paid tribute to soldiers involved in building NHS Nightingale
Similar hospitals are being installed in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow to ease pressure on existing sites.
Colonel Boreham, who has helped create field hospitals around the world, said: ‘We are building a hospital for people in our nation. You are saving people’s lives and they could be the lives of your families. It’s the biggest job I’ve ever done.
‘My grandfather was at the Somme, this is no different. I’m just at a different battle. I’m from London, I have friends and family in London. Many of the people working here, many of the soldiers working here, are from London.
‘We are doing this to save the lives of Londoners. These are our comrades, there’s no difference. It doesn’t matter if they are civilian or military.’
He said the NHS, which is leading the project, and the military had ‘one single purpose, one single aim to save lives’. Colonel Boreham, who joined the Army in 1992, is due to retire in a few weeks and take up a job at an NHS clinical commissioning group.
The 54-year-old father of two said his wife was a front-line NHS worker and his daughter was volunteering to distribute food during the crisis.
His mother, 88, is in ‘lockdown’ at home in London, as is his son, he said.
Speaking about his mother, he said: ‘She has been proud of me since the moment I joined the army.’ He said having family close by meant that the mission against the virus was ‘very personal’.
He said: ‘It is very personal, it cannot be anything else. It focuses the mind, and that is why you have everyone pulling together.’
Members of the Queen’s Gurkha Engineer Regiment, 36 Engineer Regiment as they help build Nightingale Hospital
During a tour in Afghanistan in 2013-14, he was commander med which meant he was responsible for all the military medical services in the war-zone.
Helping to oversee the building of NHS Nightingale is his last job before he retires.
‘At every stage the NHS are leading this, we are literally just doing that little bit of assisting and planning. They are amazing’, he said.
Comparing the mission to his time in Afghanistan and Iraq, Col Boreham said: ‘The difference here is that it is at scale.’
He went on: ‘The challenges are the same, the threats are in a different way. It is more the threat is one we can’t see.’
He said two weeks ago he had no idea he was facing such a task but was called in and sat around a table with the NHS, ‘over a brew’ and mapped out the plan.
Up to 200 soldiers a day have been helping in the construction of the Docklands hospital.
They are carrying out medical planning, logistics, engineering and tasks such as building beds, laying floors, and carrying out electrics and plumbing.
Ventilators are stored and ready to be used by Coronavirus patients at the ExCel centre in London which is being made into a temporary hospital
Sergeant Mark Anderson, 32, 1st Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment, is also on the project. He has served for 15 years, carrying out tours of Iraq, four tours of Afghanistan and was part of a UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
He said: ‘It’s a new experience. It is an invisible enemy and we all need to work together to combat the outbreak. Everyone has been working flat out to the best of their ability to get this place up and running in the quickest possible time.’
He added: ‘The only way we are going to do it is everyone coming together which we have done at NHS Nightingale.’
He said arriving at the ExCel centre had ‘hit home’ what the UK is facing and the ‘reality of the scale of the outbreak’.
‘I didn’t join the army expecting something like this to happen. It’s not to say we are not ready and not prepared’, he said.
‘Everyone has been working flat out to the best of their ability to get this place up and running in the quickest possible time.’
Lt Michael Andrews, 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment, said he had been pulled off a training mission in Sierra Leone to fly back to Britain and help with Covid-19.
The 24-year-old, who is part of the effort to help construction workers with general tasks, said: ‘We are enormously proud to be part of such a momentous task.
‘It has been quite incredible to see the team effort, people from the NHS, civil services and military coming together in what is such an important time in this nation’s history.’
More than 16,000 members of staff could be needed to run the temporary hospital if it reaches its near 4,000-bed capacity. It will be split into more than 80 wards containing 42 beds each.
The facility will be used to treat Covid-19 patients transferred from intensive care units across London.
Chief operating officer Natalie Forrest said last night: ‘If we have to use this facility, which I really hope we don’t because everyone is staying home and washing their hands and social distancing, we will need thousands of doctors and nurses and volunteers. To run one ward we need 200 members of staff.’
The hospital will initially care for 42 patients as a trial run.
Split into more than 80 wards containing 42 beds each, the Nightingale will become one of the biggest hospitals in the world, according to Ms Forrest.
Ground works begin on a temporary mortuary on grassland near Manor Park, east London
The mortuary, about the size of two football pitches, is being developed on forest land close to the City of London crematorium and cemetery
The facility will be used to treat Covid-19 patients who have been transferred from other intensive care units (ICU) across London.
Speaking to visiting reporters, Ms Forrest said a ‘scary’ number of staff would be needed to run the facility at full capacity and appealed for volunteers to come forward.
‘If we have to use this facility, which I really hope we don’t because everyone is staying home and washing their hands and social distancing, we will need thousands of doctors and nurses and volunteers to run this facility,’ she said.
Asked to clarify how many are required, Ms Forrest said: ‘The numbers are scary, but if I tell you that to run one ward, including all of our ancillary staff, we need 200 members of staff.’
The hospital will initially aim to care for 42 patients, before its expansion is ‘ramped up’ to ensure it can meet its full 4,000-bed capacity in two weeks’ time if needed, the Nightingale’s chief medical director Alan McGlennan said.
He said coronavirus patients who are transferred to the hospital will already be on a ventilator and will remain at the Nightingale until their course of ventilation is finished.
Coronavirus patients suffering from other serious conditions – such as cardiac issues – will be better cared for at other specialist centres, Mr McGlennan said.
While the Nightingale will be able to provide up to 4,000 ventilator beds if they are needed, NHS London will still have control over the ‘most precious resources’, he added.
Eamonn Sullivan, the hospital’s director of nursing, said the facility will be able to operate as a large intensive care unit or a normal ward, depending on demand.
The Nightingale will also include support services found in other NHS hospitals, such as pharmacies and therapy treatment, Mr Sullivan said.
Yesterday, pictures emerged of a large mortuary that is being developed on forest land close to the City of London crematorium and cemetery. The new site is expected to take the dead from the new Nightingale Hospital.