Coronavirus in Scotland: 3,000 retired NHS staff volunteer to help As well as using retired workers, all final year nursing and midwifery students will also be given paid work placements on wards

More than 3,000 retired Scottish nurses, doctors and other medical workers have volunteered to return to work as part of efforts to help the NHS withstand the coronavirus outbreak.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the health service’s response to the crisis had been “extraordinary” as she announced a series of measures to get it through the coming weeks.

These include plans to quadruple the NHS’s intensive care unit (ICU) capacity to 700 beds, open dedicated coronavirus assessment centres and suspend hospital car parking charges.

The i politics newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

The announcement was made as the latest figures showed two more deaths in Scotland, taking the total to 16, with the number of confirmed cases jumping to 584, an increase of 85 in only 24 hours.

In a statement at Holyrood, Ms Freeman said there had been a “tremendous response” to the call for retired nurses and other NHS workers to return to work to help with the virus effort.

She revealed that by the end of Monday, the health service’s national recruitment hub had received almost 3,300 individual inquiries from people volunteering their services.

As well as using retired workers, all final year nursing and midwifery students will also be given paid work placements on wards during the final six months of their degree programmes.

“We will ensure that all of these volunteers are deployed in the safest and most appropriate way,” Ms Freeman told MSPs.

“I’m sure that every single one of us here is truly grateful to all of them for stepping forward to serve us at this time.”

She said that plans to double Scotland’s ICU capacity were on course, with NHS facilities being repurposed and staff retrained to deal with the expected surge in patients.

But she added that “the scale of the challenge” meant that ministers were now planning to quadruple the number of ICU beds, with more ventilators also set to arrive in the coming weeks.

Testing centres

Dedicated Covid-19 assessment centres are also being created across the country, with an initial 50 set to be operational this week, freeing up GP surgeries to deal with other patients.

As of Monday, car parking charges will also be suspended at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Ninewells Hospital in Dundee for three months.

“The response of our health and social care staff has been extraordinary,” Ms Freeman added.

“Every single one, from consultant to cleaner, from carer to nurse to driver, to maintenance worker to paramedic is vital. We owe it to each and every one of them to stick to the rules and stay at home.”

Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon announced that business at the Scottish Parliament will be cut back in line with official advice, with MSPs only meeting on one day a week until at least 4 April.

“The overall message is very clear: people must stay at home,” she said.

“I know how hard this is for everybody but people should not be meeting friends, they should not be meeting family members who live outside of their home.”