This is what it will be like if you are a Covid-19 patient at Nightingale Hospital North East

The new site can accommodate an additional 460 patients – if the North East’s hospitals are filled with people fighting the coronavirus.

If they reach capacity, around 2,000 nursing staff, plus allied healthcare professionals, will then be called upon to work at the Nightingale facility.

The hospital is just minutes away from the A19 in an industrial unit named the Innovation Centre, near to the Nissan plant in Washington.

The base was chosen due to its central location in the North East and it is one of 10 Nightingale Hospitals being built around the country.

Which patients will be taken to the Nightingale Hospital?

Only those who have tested positive for coronavirus will receive treatment at the new hospital.

Gordon Elder, nursing lead at Nightingale Hospital North East, said: “We do have some selection criteria in relation to patients when they come here because we don’t have the full range of support that we have at a normal hospital – but we can take people back to regional hospitals like Sunderland, Newcastle or Gateshead if we had to.

“So patients who meet the criteria to come here would be within a regional hospital for 24 hours, stabilised, and then brought here where we can continue to ventilate them if required or we can then do what is called weaning – so we’d wean them off the ventilators – and get them on to one of the wards where they can be discharged home.”

Where will they be treated?

Patients will be treated on one of 20 wards. Eight of these wards are specifically designed to treat those needing intensive care.

If needed, every ward can be changed into an intensive care ward.

Hospital bosses aim to have 130 ventilators, which have been tested on site, when the hospital opens at the end of April.

How will patients be able to speak to loved ones?

Martin Wilson, chief operating officer for Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “If we do need to open the facility it’s right that for protection purposes we will not be letting visitors come into the hospital – because we wouldn’t want to spread the virus onto them.

“We’re looking at technological solutions to enable people to stay in contact with their loved ones – so iPads and FaceTiming and them kind of things.”

A dedicated 24/7 telephone line will be set up for relatives to call when they would like to receive updates on their loved ones.

What is the process for patients being taken to the Nightingale Hospital?

Patients will only be admitted to the Nightingale if a regional hospital becomes full.

A regional command has been set up to look at the capacity levels for intensive care and ward-based patients who have tested postitive for Covid-19 across the North East.

If a hospital has been identified as no longer having any available beds, a decision would be made as to whether patients should come to Nightingale.

They would then be transported to the hospital through the North East Ambulance Service.