Help desk staff at Nightingale Hospital ExCeL Centre east London paid more than nurses

Jobs for help desk staff at London’s new field hospital are being advertised for £13,500 more than the average nurse’s salary. 

The NHS Nightingale Hospital is due to open this week at the ExCeL Centre in east London, providing up to 4,000 extra coronavirus patient beds. 

But online job adverts show that reception staff at the new site are being recruited for thousands more per year than nurses forced to put their lives at risk to treat people with the virus.

Help desk staff annual salaries are advertised at £37,500, while NHS nurses start at £24,000. 

The admin staff are also entitled to claim £15 a day for travel expenses and £10 for food, unlike frontline nurses. 

Online adverts state that ‘full personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided for help desk staff, when NHS doctors and nurses nationwide are treating infectious patients without the recommended protective clothing.  

Pictured: A soldier at the ExCel in Newham, London, helps set up the hospital as Britain prepares for the peak of the pandemic 

Online job adverts (pictured) show that reception staff at the new site are being recruited for thousands more per year than nurses forced to put their lives at risk to treat people with the virus

Jobs for cleaners, porters and food and drink distribution staff are also available for similar wages as nurses on the frontline. 

Porter and food and drink distribution staff are being paid between £11.52 and £15.58 an hour, while nurses are paid a similar rate of £12.74 to £15.66 per hour. 

The post recruiting for help desk staff on job site Integra People reads: ‘Helpdesk staff need! 

‘We are recruiting for ExCeL London – a new temporary hospital equippred with ventilators and oxygen for patients of coronavirus.’  

They will be expected to work 12-hour shifts within a pattern of four days on and four days off, with 30 days paid holiday a year.  

The 68,750-capacity venue in the London Docklands is being built to ease pressure on the capital’s struggling NHS hospitals. 

The city has more cases than anywhere else in the country, with some sites declaring emergencies as they near full capacity. 

Jobs for cleaners, porters and food and drink distribution staff are also available for similar wages as nurses on the frontline

The NHS Nightingale Hospital is due to open this week at the ExCeL Centre in east London (construction pictured this week), providing up to 4,000 extra coronavirus patient beds

Members of the Armed forces are pictured laying down flooring at the ExCeL on Friday 

Military planners are pictured together at the ExCeL centre in east London on Friday 

Soldiers arrive at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital at the ExCeL centre in Newham, East London, today as the hospital gears up to receive its first patients next week 

Soldiers descended upon the ExCel centre today to help complete the building’s transformation into the capital’s emergency coronavirus hospital.  

Officers in uniform took to the international convention centre in Newham, East London, to assist construction workers and NHS staff in the final touches of the new Nightingale hospital as the UK tries to control the spread of the deadly virus which has now claimed the lives of 1,228 in the country.

Incredible images from inside the new hospital showed military personnel help workers in erecting cubicles and carrying equipment into the transformed centre- which is set to hold up to 4,000 COVID-19 patients and will initially have 500 beds.  

Officers pull mats onto the floor and assist in the transformation of the new field hospital which will open to coronavirus patients on April 4

Ambulances line up outside the ExCel centre in London after construction work to transform the centre into the new NHS Nightingale hospital began yesterday

Yesterday the nation was given their very first glimpse of the new field hospital as construction work began and and NHS staff helped unload medical equipment including oxygen tanks, heart monitors and defibrillators.

As military planners continue to work with Health Service officials to help create the new hospital in the capital, ambulances were seen lining up outside the centre to give up their services to the effort and help prepare for the hospital’s first patients who are set to arrive next week.

Extraordinary pictures from inside the new hospital, which will join two other hospital NHS Nightingale hospitals being built in Birmingham and Manchester, showed how hundreds of cubicles had been erected inside the vast space in an effort to facilitate for the thousands of patients due to arrive.

Soldiers help transform the exhibition centre into the new Nightingale Hospital as the nation tries to cope with the rising number of Covid-19 patients

Soldiers help lay the flooring down as the new NHS Nightingale Hospital prepares for its first patients next week 

Soldiers help put up cubicles inside the new field hospital as the exhibition centre prepares for its first patients on April 4

Pictured: A firefighter stands outside the new NHS Nightingale Hospital at ExCeL London, as the country tries to cope with the number of coronavirus patients 

The hospital, which is expected to open next Saturday, April 4, will comprise of two wards which will each be able to care for 2,000 sick patients. 

On Friday Mayor Sadiq Khan warned Londoners that the situation could become ‘a lot worse’ over the next few weeks but ‘we are going to do what we can’.

He said: ‘I need to warn people that it is going to a lot worse over the next few weeks. 

‘But we are going to do what we can for that eventuality. The number of people we are talking about are large and we need to be ready for that.

‘You will have seen the amount of dead already in London, we are two or three weeks ahead of the rest of the country and we know the peak is coming soon, three to five weeks away.’ 

Earlier today it was revealed that a petition to name Birmingham’s temporary field hospital after Crimean War nurse Mary Seacole had reached 1,000 signatures.

Staff from the Metropolitan Police officers stand outside the new NHS Nightingale Hospital as final preparation are made 

The new hospital, which is set to open next Saturday,  will initially contain 500 beds and will be able tohold up to 4,000 COVID-19 patients

 The new hospital in London will comprise of two wards which will each be able to house 2,000 sick patients 

The NHS chief executive of the NHS Sir Simon Stevens confirmed the city’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) would be transformed into a site to treat coronavirus patients on Friday.

The NEC is one of the latest proposals for a temporary field hospital after the ExCeL site in London, which has been equipped with 4,000 beds to cope with any patient surge in the capital.

Speaking about the two new NHS Nightingale Hospitals due to open in Birmingham and Manchester, the NHS chief said: ‘It will take a monumental effort from everyone across the country to beat this epidemic, but the NHS is mobilising like never before to deliver care in new ways, to thousands more people – starting with the opening of the first NHS Nightingale in London later next week.

‘These are extraordinary steps the NHS is taking, and clinicians, managers and military planners are working day and night to create, equip and staff these hospitals from scratch and prepare for the surge that is likely to be coming.’ 

More field hospitals are being installed at sites in Manchester and Wales. Manchester Central Convention Complex will add 500 more, with the capacity to expand to 1,000, and Cardiff’s Principality Stadium will provide up to 2,000 more.

Cardiff’s Pricipality Stadium, usually the Welsh home of Rugby Union, will provide 2,000 beds for COVID-19 patients across Wales. 

There is speculation sports grounds and even gyms could become field hospitals in the desperate fight against the virus. MailOnline has contacted NHS England for comment.  

The 68,750-capacity venue in the London Docklands (pictured exterior) is being built to ease pressure on the capital’s struggling NHS hospitals