An 800-bed coronavirus hospital is to be set up in North Yorkshire

The government is to create a large field hospital in Harrogate for coronavirus cases.

In a scoop, the FT reports that the UK’s fifth temporary hospital will be created at Harrogate Convention Centre.

The Harrogate hospital will treat patients from across Yorkshire and would be about a fifth the size as the NHS Nightingale, the coronavirus hospital at the Excel Centre in London.

That would mean the North Yorkshire version would have about 800 beds.

According to Andy Bounds and Helen Warrell in the FT:

• The Ministry of Defence, which supplied military engineers and logistics experts to help build the Nightingale Hospital, has received a formal request to help set up the Harrogate site, but has not yet started work on the project.

  Andrew Jones, the local Conservative MP, said Harrogate would be “pleased to play its part in the national effort against this virus”.

  The Ministry of Defence said the armed forces were “supporting the NHS to understand where further facilities could be set up in other areas of the country”.