'Enormous gratitude' for Harrogate's new Nightingale Hospital

Based on the repurposed Excel Centre in London which is already set to treat its first coronavirus patients, the exhibition halls at Harrogate Convention Centre have been transformed into Yorkshire's Nightingale Hospital which may end playing a key role for the whole county as the crisis unfolds.

The only other Nightingale Hospital in England outside of the capital is located in Bristol.

Judith Rogerson Harrogate's Lib Dem candidate at last year's General Election said everyone owed an "enormous debt of gratitude" for the incredibly speedy way the new hospital had been put together in the centre of town.

She said: "We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the people who have been working so hard this week to transform the Convention Centre into a Nightingale Hospital.

"To put together such a major project in such a short space of time is hugely impressive.

"This is an incredibly difficult time for everyone which makes it all the more wonderful that so many people in our community are pulling together to look after each other in so many different ways."

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Harrogate Lib Dem leader, Coun Pat Marsh said the community should give its full support to the NHS and the new field hospital near the Royal Hall.

Coun Marsh said: “As a new era dawns in Harrogate with the opening of the Nightingale Hospital in the convention centre our thoughts will be with those people who will have to use this facility and the staff who will be working hard for them and just to say this community will be there to support them in any way we can”.

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