
London Exhibition centre turning into 4000 bed Covid-19 hospital to open in days - helsinkiandrew
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/londons-excel-centre-will-be-treating-covid-19-patients-within-days
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DanBC
The worrying thing is that beds are easy. We could just requisition hotel
rooms if we needed. The bed is the least important part of the package of
stuff that we mean when we talk about beds.

You need doctors, nurses (and these are specialist nurses), ventilators,
oxygen, etc etc.

We're already seeing a collapse in skill mix in London ICUs. Nurses are going
from 1:1 (one specialist nurse per patient) to 1:6. Doctors are going from
between 1:8 - 1:15 to 1:30

> While many covid-19 patients have minor illness, large proportions of those
> who are admitted to hospital require intensive care — and modelling suggests
> the NHS’ previous ICU capacity could fall far short.

[https://www.hsj.co.uk/exclusive-intensive-care-staffing-
rati...](https://www.hsj.co.uk/exclusive-intensive-care-staffing-ratios-
dramatically-diluted/7027214.article)

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helsinkiandrew
Presumably the 500 beds have equipment and staff. When they talk about
hospital ICU beds it means a bed with staff and equipment for its task.

Also I wonder how much economy of scale of staff you get if all patients have
the same condition are anaesthetised, intubated and on a ventilator.

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helsinkiandrew
‘Defence sources added that “more than one” emergency hospital would be built
around the UK, although London is first because the rate of coronavirus
infections is considered to be running 1.5 to 2.5 weeks ahead’

