Louisa Jordan will close within weeks

THE NHS Louisa Jordan, the temporary hospital set up in case the NHS was overwhelmed with Covid patients, is to close within two weeks.

The facility at the SEC will shut on March 31, the health secretary, Jeane Freeman, has said. The mass vaccination centre will relocate to the SSE Hydro.

The Scottish Government said with NHS services remobilising across the country, NHS staff at the Louisa Jordan will return to their own health boards or support the vaccination programme at The SSE Hydro.

The Scottish Events Campus will be returned to a working events and conference centre, including preparing to host COP26.

By March 31, staff at the hospital will have carried out more than 32,000 outpatient and diagnostic appointments, trained more than 6900 healthcare staff and students, and vaccinated approximately 175,000 people across the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area. The site has also supported the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service, with over 500 donations being carried out, as well as providing Occupational Health services for the University of Glasgow for nearly 1000 people.

Once relocated to The SSE Hydro, the centre will continue to run daily clinics with the ability to administer a minimum of 4000 vaccinations each day, with capacity to scale up to 10,000.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “I want to thank everyone who has supported the establishment of NHS Louisa Jordan.

“From the contractors involved in the building work, to the support staff who have worked throughout and the staff who have treated patients and administered Covid vaccinations, each one of them has played a vitally important role in helping to protect our NHS and save lives. We said from the start that this facility has a vital part of our Covid-19 contingency planning but we hoped it would not be needed to treat Covid patients.

“Thanks to the continued efforts of the public, we have been able to maintain capacity in our hospitals across the country and use this facility to remobilise health services and treat patients whose healthcare had to be cancelled last year due to Covid.

“Since July 2020 staff at the Louisa Jordan have treated more than 32,000 patients, trained over 6900 healthcare staff and students, and, more recently, supported the delivery of our vaccination programme with about 175,000 vaccinations since December.

“As we work our way through the JCVI vaccination priority list and begin to vaccinate more people across the country, we have secured use of the Hydro to ensure we can continue to vaccinate people as quickly as supplies allow.”