A NURSE in NHS Lothian has expressed concerns about how hospitals in the health board are coping with coronavirus.

She told The National that a room where a patient was diagnosed with Covid-19 wasn’t deep cleaned. Nor, she added, were staff who were in contact with that patient isolated or tested for the virus.

The nurse, who asked not to be named, said there had been a lack of a management and communication about how to deal with the crisis.

But NHS Lothian insisted they were following national guidance. A spokesperson said: “This includes specific information from Health Protection Scotland on topics such as the PPE equipment that different staff should wear.

“We have and will continue to issue regular guidance to all staff in relation to coronavirus (Covid-19), so they are kept up to date on the latest information, including national guidance and NHS Lothian specific messaging.

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“This information is emailed to all staff as well as being available on our staff intranet pages.

“If staff have concerns, we would encourage them to speak to their manager in the first instance.”

The health board has the second-highest level of confirmed coronavirus cases in Scotland, with the number increasing from 35 on Wednesday to 40 on Thursday.

There are fears that those numbers will soon spike, leaving staff and hospitals overwhelmed.

There are now 322 confirmed cases across Scotland.

The number of people who have died in the UK has risen to 177, with 39 patients dying in England – the biggest rise in a day.

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At 9am on Friday, 3983 people in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland had tested positive for Covid-19.

Yesterday, an Italian expert warned the UK must prepare for a “tsunami” of patients needing specialist care.

Davide Manca, professor of process systems engineering at Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, said hospitals in the UK should increase the capacity of their intensive care units.

He was speaking as Northwick Park Hospital in London declared a “critical incident” due to a surge in patients with Covid-19.

Manca told the PA news agency: “Hospitals have to prepare for the tsunami wave by increasing the number of ICU beds before a large number of people arrive.”

He added: “Making some unpopular decisions - such as enforcing people to stay at home or closing schools, universities, and other aggregation points, closing companies and commercial activities together with shops that are not vital – would be a wise choice.”

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His research, prepared for the European Society of Anaesthesiology, suggests that patients who survive in Italy are spending an average of 15 days in intensive care, and at least

10 days in each case. Italian figures show that the number of people needing intensive care rises quickly as the epidemic spreads.

Manca suggested that the number of patients with coronavirus in intensive care in Italy may have peaked in Lombardy, but may still be peaking in Italy as a whole.

“If other countries want to have enough ICU beds to treat all the Covid-19 patients that are going to be arriving in their hospitals, they have to decrease the peak of the tsunami of cases that are coming,” he said.

“The most effective way to do this is to follow and enforce Italy’s very strict quarantine and social distancing measures, and make sure they are implemented.”

The NHS in Scotland was placed on an emergency footing earlier this week.

Scotland’s Chief Nursing Officer Fiona McQueen yesterday wrote to retired medical professionals asking them to help.