Nightingale hospitals to close in April as virus recedes

NIGHTINGALE hospitals in England will be shut down next month, the NHS said last night amid dramatic declines in Covid-19 admissions to hospital, and death and case numbers.

The network, described as the “ultimate insurance policy” remained largely empty during most of the pandemic due to staffing shortages.

Seven Nightingale hospitals were built in England while the Excel Centre in London was repurposed as a 4,000bed facility. The Government provided funding last summer to keep the temporary hospitals open until March.

Hospital admissions in England of patients with Covid-19 aged 85 and over have fallen 90 per cent since the peak of the second wave, analysis shows.

The number has dropped from 863 admissions on Jan 12 to just 90 on March 5. It is the first time daily admissions for the 85-and-over age group have been below 100 since Oct 10.

People aged 80 and over were among the first groups to be eligible for a vaccine, and some will now have received both doses.

Meanwhile the number of daily new cases of Covid-19 in the UK has fallen to 4,712 – the lowest since September.

A study published last week by Public Health England suggested that a single dose of either the Pfizer or the Oxfordastrazeneca vaccine is more than 80 per cent effective at preventing people over 80 being admitted to hospital, around three to four weeks after the jab.

NHS England figures show hospital admissions of patients aged 65-84 have also fallen sharply since the secondwave peak, dropping 91 per cent from 1,678 on Jan 12 to 159 on March 5.