The UK is more that London

Some major hospitals have a massive 'catchment' area and poor ambulance provision. I hope they have made extra hospital spaces for the West Country, East Midlands, and the north of England. Rural Wales and Scotland too.

I have the same concerns as the OP.

Over a week ago Chelsea FC offered their Millennium Hotel which is adjacent to Stamford Bridge, to the NHS.

It will be used in the main by the nearby Chelsea & Westminster Hospital.

Gary Neville has done it in Manchester. Why have no London hoteliers? www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2020/0319/1124045-neville-makes-hotels-available-to-help-medical-staff/
For single NHS workers it would provide a place to stay and mean they wouldn't have to use the Tube. Even some with families might choose to stay when they are working long shifts.

And the NHS staff that can return home for days off want to do so! This isnt a short term thing

You also need security as again, hotels are not set up like apartment blocks. So security staff have to travel in... leaving their families..

Most central london hotel maintenance staff do not live in central london themselves..

Hotels are not like apartment blocks. They cannot safely just house residents. They need staff to keep it running safely even without frills. Hotel rooms are not stand alone & self contained, hotels take a lot of daily maintenance just to be safe and run. Those staff want to be home with their families..

Have they been ordered to shut though?

One thing that could happen in London is that all the posh hotels could offer essential workers a place to stay if they needed it and would prefer not to have to travel on the Tube every day.

London IS a special case.

In London is the norm for professional well paid singles and couples to still flat/house share witg multiple others.

Transport is rarely as densly packed elsewhere

Yes we live in or near other cities but few have Londons problems when it comes to peoples ABILITY to self isolate or social distance!

According to her they have been told that the government will pay their funeral expenses.

TBH they'll be paying everyones
Abroad religous institutions failed miserably to adapt at all to the type and speed of burials required in a pandemic and arrogantly insisted in doing it the way they usually do, just with smaller congregations, until the military was forced to take over from religous funerals due to the backlog they caused. Non religous funeral providers on the other hand adapted and helped.

Its time for religous workers to be taken off the keyworker list.

vegansrock yes it was on the news this morning, they have plans for NEC Birmingham and somewhere in Manchester, but I did not catch the name of the venue.

I sometimes think that posters who live far away from London make assumptions about it. I live about 13 miles from the capital, but remember when I worked up there and that was years ago how densely packed in it was from a numbers point of view, it's a lot worse now. London's cases of this terrible virus are far outstripping other parts of the country.

Heard someone on the radio saying there were plans to use the NEC in Birmingham if the need arose.

I agree with Callistemon, this is not the time to ‘snipe’ about the RF, which of course many cannot resist the chance to whinge about empty properties. Hardly suitable for a 4000 bed hospital. It’s obvious London needs it as a priority compared to other parts of the country.

I pray that it will not have to be used, I fear that it will.

My DS and DiL live in London and are just recovering from Covid-19. Luckily they had it mildly and the children, not at all. They have always said that London is the place to be for opportunities for themselves and the children. I am not convinced

I saw a post about using black cabs as transport for key workers ,NHS staff etc. Might be better to send them to work in twos than on trains

I understand Frogmore is vacant. Seriously, the logistics of crisis health care delivery are being developed day to day.
Safe transport of the most ill into London may be only one approach. I do not think there is a single right answer.

Londoners are still packed on the tube, in the parks on the apparatus. Just madness.

I don't begrudge them the hospital at all and I don't think this is the thread for sniping either.
Worried too about a family member who works at a central London hospital in ICU.

A doctor friend of DD has been working at the John Radcliffe in Oxford a couple of days a week. She has now been moved up there as part of a third wave of doctors to wait until the first and second waves have succumbed to Covid 19 and need replacing. According to her they have been told that the government will pay their funeral expenses. So that's all right then!

I don't think they left it in a safe condition so it can't be finished and used.

I remember from watching Hospital that there's a massive hospital In Liverpool which was abandoned when Carillon went bust - maybe that could be completed..

I wrote the OP and made a point of saying I don't begrudge Londoners the hospital and I don't think anyone has posted such on here.

My son is a paramedic, on ambulances in London. Today they took the ventilator he uses on the ambulance, for use in hospitals. He also still doesn't have proper masks with filters.