By Ben Kerrigan-
NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and Humber is to be dismantled almost a year after it was built at a cost of more than £27m.
The temporary 500-bed site was set up at Harrogate Convention Centre in April last year to help cope with a surge of Coronavirus cases, but it has not treated a single virus patient during the pandemic.
Contractors have started removing medical equipment from the venue after it was announced by the NHS earlier this month that the emergency hospital would close at the start of April .
“The phased dismantling of NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber has begun,” the spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“The removal of some larger pieces of equipment will require road closures which will be advertised through the appropriate channels in due course.”
The emergency hospital was one of seven built in England, and was used for non-virus diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments.
Earlier this month, the NHS described the network of Nightingale hospitals as the “ultimate insurance policy” as it announced each of the sites, apart from those in London and Sunderland which will stay open for vaccinations, will close next month.
Health officials also described it as a “success” that the Harrogate site was not needed but conceded there are questions over how it would have been staffed.
Investigation
Councillors on the West Yorkshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee this week launching an investigation into why the facility was not used for Covid patients.
Councillor Jim Clark, the chairman of North Yorkshire County Council, said there are “questions to be answered” and “lessons we can learn” around the Nightingale.
He told the health committee on Monday, he said: “We need to know how we would have staffed it, what capacity it would have been able to provide, where the staff would have come from and what effect that would have had on services within the rest of Yorkshire.”
However, an investigation into why the facility treated no Covid patients has been started by councillors on the West Yorkshire Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Councillor Jim Clark, the chairman of North Yorkshire County Council, told the committee: “We need to know how we would have staffed it, what capacity it would have been able to provide, where the staff would have come from and what effect that would have had on services within the rest of Yorkshire.”
Earlier this month, the NHS described the network of Nightingale hospitals as the “ultimate insurance policy” as it announced the planned closure of each of the sites, apart from those in London and Sunderland which will stay open for vaccinations.