Two new coronavirus wards to be built at Hull Royal Infirmary ready for a second wave

Health bosses in Hull say there's no room for complacency, despite a fall in the number of patients being admitted with Covid-19.

Mrs Teresa Cope, Chief Operating Officer at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) said the hospital needs to be ready should a second wave happen.

She said a second wave "could place very high demand on services and [the hospital] need to ensure we are in the best possible position in order to respond in the same way that we did when we got the first surge back in April."

Hull Royal Infirmary

Two new Covid-19 wards and an assessment centre are due to open in Hull Royal Infirmary in the next two weeks.  

They'll be able to accomodate one hundred coronavirus patients and will be separate from other parts of the hospital.

They new wards were commissioned four months ago, as part of a long-term strategy to deal with ongoing cases of Covid-19.

When the plans were announced in May Jacqueline Myers, Director of Strategy and Planning at HUTH, said: “It is now clear that rather than experiencing a short but intense peak of COVID-19 hospital admissions, we can expect a prolonged period of relatively small levels of activity.”

The Trust that runs the hospital believes Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital experienced a peak of the virus on April 21, with 110 confirmed patients.

They said demand for critical care beds peaked on May 2 with 20 patients.