Health Secretary: Nightingale hospitals will not take non-coronavirus patients
The Nightingale Hospital will not be used to treat non-coronavirus patients, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.
The huge field hospital at Birmingham's NEC has not received any patients since it opened two weeks ago, with health bosses saying the region's 23 hospitals had coped without it.
They had hoped it could potentially be used for patients requiring other medical procedures, but Matt Hancock has rejected the idea.
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He said all eight of the country's Nightingale hospitals were set up specifically to deal with Covid-19 patients, and that their presence had helped the NHS to restore other services.
"The Nightingales are not going to be used for non-coronavirus purposes because they are precisely set up and designed to deal with people who are integrated and who are sedated," Mr Hancock said.
"The fact that they are there does help us to restore more of the core NHS and get that going as much as possible."
Professor Stephen Powis, the National Medical Director of NHS England, said the Nightingale hospitals showed how the NHS could be flexible in adapting its model of care.
"We still feel that we need to have them there as an insurance policy for Covid patients," he added.
Birmingham Nightingale Hospital has been set up to take up to 4,000 coronavirus patients and opened on the day hospitals across the region were expected to hit full capacity.
West Midlands Mayor Andy Street said the number of cases had been kept down to manageable levels due to people adhering to social distancing measures.
Despite its lack of use, the site is likely to be kept open into next year, with health bosses still wary of the impact of a second wave of the virus.
London's Nightingale, at the ExCel centre, has treated around 50 patients in the three weeks since it opened.
Parts of the NHS have started reopening for routine care this week, including cancer and mental health treatments.
