The nurse, who did not wish to be named, issued a plea for proper masks, gowns and gloves as she revealed staff were forced to wear clinical waste bags on their heads and feet for protection.

“We had to use our initiative. We had no other choice or we could catch the virus ourselves,” she told the Telegraph.

“We need proper PPE kit now, or nurses and doctors are going to die. It’s as simple as that.

“We’re treating our own colleagues on the ward after they caught the virus from patients. How can that be right?

“There are so many younger people here on ventilation - many with asthma, or diabetes. They can’t stop coughing, they just cough and cough and cough and they can’t help it.

“But there’s little we can do apart from try to help them breathe. Sometimes the body just gives up, and they die. We can’t save them.

“And the worst part is that we can’t allow their relatives in to say goodbye.

“Even our own families don’t want us to come home in case we bring back the disease. What can we do?

“There’s too many Covid patients coming in to cope with. We put on our brave smiles but inside we’re terrified. I don’t know what will happen next.”

The hospital is run by London North West University Healthcare Trust, which has since reported six deaths related to coronavirus, all at Northwick Park.

The potential lack of critical care beds in England has been the major concern around coronavirus, and trusts are currently repurposing wards and retraining staff to try and create more capacity. National leaders have suggested the number of critical care beds likely needs to rise by several times.

A senior director at another London acute trust told Health Service Journal: “Given we’re in the low foothills of this virus, this is f---ing petrifying.

“The thing people aren’t really talking about yet is that we are going to have to quickly agree some clinical thresholds for admissions to intensive care. This is what the Italians have had to do, and whether it’s set at 60 or whatever, we are going to have to do something similar. There’s no way we’re going to be able to scale up to the level we need otherwise.