00:01Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen, if I may say so, I was enormously touched to have been asked to
00:09open the Nightingale Hospital as part of a mass mobilisation to withstand the coronavirus crisis.
00:17It is without doubt a spectacular and almost unbelievable feat of work in every sense. This hospital, therefore, offers us
00:28an intensely practical message of hope for those who will need it most at this time of national suffering.
00:36Let us also pray, ladies and gentlemen, that it will be required for as short a time and for as
00:44few people as possible.
00:47Now, I need hardly say that the name of this hospital could not have been more aptly chosen.
00:53Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp, brought hope and healing to thousands in their darkest hour.
01:01In this dark time, this place will be a shining light.
01:07Ladies and gentlemen, as the wonders of modern technology can only do so much and I can't quite reach, perhaps
01:17I could invite Nightingale's head of nursing, Natalie Gray, on my behalf to unveil the plaque to declare NHS Nightingale
01:27Hospital open.
01:30An expectations.
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