Competing interests: Both NG and DT have provided input to the London Nightingale hospital mental health plan. NG runs a psychological health consultancy that provides resilience training for a wide range of organisations, including a few National Health Service (NHS) teams. The work was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King’s College London, in partnership with Public Health England and in collaboration with the University of East Anglia and Newcastle University.