Opening this week? Just heard that 4,000 staff are needed there initially. From whence will they come?
'On 21 and 22 March, military planners and NHS England staff visited ExCeL London – an exhibition and convention centre in the Custom House area of Newham, East London – to "determine if the armed forces could support the NHS response to the outbreak". Plans to create the hospital were officially announced in a press briefing by Health Secretary Matt Hancock on 24 March. The hospital will be run by NHS staff and volunteers with 700 military personnel providing logistic assistance.
The facility was planned and constructed in conjunction with the British Armed Forces, and the mission is being run from the Headquarters Standing Joint Command in Aldershot, which coordinates resilience missions for the UK. The facility is expected to open in the week commencing 30 March 2020.
It is expected to take 500 patients from its opening, rapidly expanding to have capacity for 4,000 patients in two wards of 2,000 beds each. This will make it the largest hospital in the UK, significantly larger than the biggest permanent hospital, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, which has 1,677 beds.'