‘We drew up the plan over a brew’ – inside operation Nightingale

Army field hospital experts and contractors converted Excel into 4,000 bed mega-hospital in just nine days

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London’s emergency coronavirus hospital at the Excel conference centre has been built from scratch over the last nine days in an unprecedented civil-military partnership and is ready to receive its first patients this week.

Planning has involved soldiers with experience from Afghanistan and the west African ebola crisis, working in support of health service staff to create NHS Nightingale, which will be the largest hospital in the UK, with 4,000 beds at full capacity.

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