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Mar 2021

Last Updated: 22/03/2021

Health

Investigation launched into Harrogate Nightingale hospital

by Calvin Robinson

| 22 Mar, 2021

NHS officials will be called to give evidence on how the 500-bed hospital, which will close at the end of the month without treating a single covid patient, would have been staffed and what services would have been affected.

NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and Humber, based at Harrogate Convention Centre.

An investigation is to be held into what lessons can be learned from Harrogate’s Nightingale hospital.

West Yorkshire Joint Health Scrutiny Committee will carry out the investigation, which it is hoped will provide evidence for any future public inquiry into covid.

Cllr Jim Clark, a Conservative who represents North Yorkshire on the panel, proposed the investigation and said it was “important to learn lessons” from the Nightingale.

The committee will look into how the hospital would have been staffed and what services would have been affected if it had been needed.

Councillors agreed to start the investigation at the next meeting of the health scrutiny committee on June 22. NHS officials will be called to give evidence to the panel.

The Harrogate Nightingale, which cost £27 million to set up and served the entire Yorkshire and Humber region, did not treat a single covid patient.

NHS confirms Harrogate Nightingale to close

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However, it has been used to provide CT scans to non-covid patients.

Cllr Clark, who had previously called for a public inquiry into the hospital, said an investigation should be carried out as soon as possible.

He said:

“We need to look at what lessons can be learned from having had the Nightingale.

“We have not had to use it, but I think we need to know how we would have staffed it and what capacity it would have been able to provide. Whether the staff would have come from other hospitals and what affect that would have had on the services within the rest of Yorkshire.

“There are a number of questions that need asking.”

NHS England confirmed earlier this month that the Nightingale will close and return to being a convention centre after this month.

The NHS has been paying utility bills of between £125,000 and £160,000 per month to Harrogate Borough Council.

Lord Newby, the Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords, who lives in Ripon, has described the Nightingale as a “costly PR stunt” and said it should have been closed “months ago”.

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Investigation launched into Harrogate Nightingale hospital

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