A former commanding officer at Camp Bastion's pop-up military hospital has issued a pep-talk to staff working at the new NHS Nightingale hospitals, telling them: "There is an end to this, you will defeat the enemy."

Captain Carol Betteridge, who ran the field hospital in Helmand Province during British presence in Afghanistan, said there were many comparisons with the pop-up medical centre and the temporary facilities created back on home soil to treat coronavirus patients.

And she praised the staff and volunteers - including military veterans - for getting involved in the Nightingale project, despite the extremely challenging conditions that lay ahead.

Capt Betteridge said: "There are really good comparisons between Nightingale and Camp Bastion - the NHS staff are leaving their families, as we did; they are donning their uniform - their PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), their body armour; they working in a challenging environment, an unknown environment with an invisible enemy; and they are working as a team, looking after each other to your left and right - the buddy-buddy system as we would have in the military.

"What we would do on the battlefield is take a knee - really pausing for your own mindfulness, thinking about what you are going to do and the challenges ahead, looking out for yourselves and each other. This important piece of work is going to leave them with memories and difficult times that won't just end when this battle is over and this enemy is defeated. But there is an end to this, you will defeat this enemy. We and your families love you so much for what you're doing and we thank you."