Pods to treat coronavirus patients to be set up at Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals

The units will be set up at Pontefract, Dewsbury and Wakefield's Pinderfields Hospital by the beginning of next week.

They will allow anyone suspected of having the virus to be treated away from other hospital patients.

There have been no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in West Yorkshire yet, but the pods are being installed at hospitals all over the country as a measure to try to stop the illness spreading.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust Board, which runs the three hospitals, on Thursday.

Chief executive Martin Barkley said: "Part of the guidance we've been given is to procure pods to go outside of our main hospitals.

"So we are procuring three of them for our hospital sites.

"They will be located adjacent to our A&E departments at Pinderfields and Dewsbury and outside our urgent treatment centre in Pontefract.

"They will be in place probably by Monday.

"It's a very dynamic situation, to put it mildly."

A total of nine people have been diagnosed with the virus in the UK after another case emerged on Thursday morning, Although there have been no deaths here, it's already killed hundreds in mainland China.

Hospitals have also been told to keep their surgery waiting lists below a certain level to ensure there is enough capacity to deal with any big rise in the number of cases.

The trust says anyone who believes they may have coronavirus should ring 111 for guidance and should not come directly to the hospital.

Local Democracy Reporting Service