Nightingale hospitals must come into use

WHAT was the point of establishing the much-vaunted Nightingale Hospitals if they are never to be used? I would have thought now, more than ever, is the time for implementation.

The main NHS hospitals are full to capacity and are, or soon will be, overwhelmed, especially now with the latest devastating news that coronavirus has mutated to a degree and transmits the infection faster than previously.

Of course, I understand reasons and arguments that generally there is shortage of NHS staff – and I can sympathise with their difficulties – but I can’t help but feel the Government took its “eye off the ball” during last summer’s relatively quiet period and could have planned massive recruitment for what many of us knew (with winter ahead) was coming.

Even then, there were thousands of Army medics which could have been specially trained for this eventuality. I believe the Government was guilty of political propaganda, and knew they could never deliver on their promise. George Philipou

Bristol