Matt Hancock has confirmed that London’s ExCeL centre will be turned into a makeshift 4,000-bed “field hospital” under NHS plans to cope when the peak of the coronavirus epidemic.
The new hospital named NHS Nightingale will open next week to provide extra critical care capacity in the capital where the NHS is most stretched.
Yesterday it was reported that the conference centre was turned into a massive critical care unit far bigger than any such facility already in existence in any NHS hospital.
Experts from the Ministry of Defence were understood to be helping the project.
Mr Hancock also called on 250,000 volunteers to sign up to help the NHS through the coronavirus crisis.
He also warned that the Prime Minister’s lockdown regulations “are not requests, they are rules”.
Giving a briefing at 10 Downing Street, he said a new hospital will be opened at the Excel Centre in East London.
The temporary hospital will have two wards for 2,000 people, and medics will be assisted by the military, the Health Secretary stated.
Mr Hancock said a call for people to return to the NHS has been “incredibly successful”, with 11,788 people responding.
It comes as the government announced that the number of coronavirus deaths in the UK has risen to 422, officials have confirmed.
