Harrogate "incredibly proud" to have housed NHS Nightingale hospital
Yorkshire's Nightingale hospital is being decommissioned
Health officials in North Yorkshire are praising the NHS Nightingale Hospital in Harrogate despite it not serving one coronavirus patient in the last 11 months.
Instead, it's looked after a number of cancer patients, to allow permanent hospitals more bed space.
It was one of seven built as an 'insurance policy' should our hospitals become overwhelmed during the pandemic.
The NHS announced earlier this week that the Nightingale hospitals across the country would be stood down as the infection rates continue to decline and vaccination effort continues.
The Harrogate Convention Centre, which was transformed in to Yorkshire's Nightingale hospital in April last year, will now be stripped of the health equipment and restored back to its former glory.
Amanda Bloor, accountability officer at North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said it's been an asset in the fight against coronavirus.
She said: "Throughout the last year and all the pandemic, the Nightingale in Harrogate has been a vital insurance policy in our approach to manage covid. But it's also played an invaluable role to support routine care, particularly in the last few months.
"The NHS over the last few months has been building its resilience across the permanent hospitals across the county and it's now the right time to stand the Nightingale in Harrogate down.
"The Nightingale was commissioned in response to the pandemic and I think we're lucky we had it there."
The convention centre in Harrogate was turned into the Nightingale in just under 12 days, but nearly a year on its being decommissioned.
Now plans to transform the 40-year old site into its former glory as one of the country's top convention venue's are underway.
Paula Lorimer, the director of the Harrogate Convention Centre, said there's a lot which needs to be done to get the site ready for when it can reopen.
She said: "We're incredibly proud of the part that we've played. We built this in just over 12 days and we will have a legacy to look back on and say we did a good job. We've just got to look to the future now and reopen our doors.
"We've got 15,000km of oxygen pipes to be removed, deep cleaning and although we didn't serve any covid patients, we want to make sure we're looking our best when we welcome everybody back.
"We've been shut from the beginning of March and we are the largest provider of economic impact to the district. Lots of businesses rely on our site to run their business and we need to be ready to serve them again.
"The only sadness we have is that Captain Tom won't be there to reopen us. He opened the Nightingale and we had hoped he could come back and reopen the conference centre when we were allowed."