NHS Louisa Jordan will see first patients in July

THE emergency hospital set up in Glasgow will receive its first patients in July as the NHS recovers from the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

NHS Louisa Jordan was built at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in April but has not been needed for Covid-19 patients.

It will now be used to help the NHS resume normal services by hosting some orthopaedic outpatient consultations.

The hospital will also be used for staff training, teaching and examinations as it provides enough space for social distancing. If successful, it could provide a wider range of services which were delayed due to the pandemic.

Set-up costs for the hospital, which has capacity to treat an initial 300 patients, were around £38 million.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “As we begin to resume some paused NHS services safely, carefully and in a series of stages, this national hospital will play an important role in helping our NHS recover by providing planned healthcare for non-Covid outpatients.”