North Mid’s services head back on site

North Mid’s outpatients services to move from Spurs stadium back to the hospital grounds

The partnership between Tottenham Hotspur and North Middlesex University Hospital which saw women’s outpatient care delivered from the football stadium, has now come to an end.

The arrangement started in mid-April, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a way of temporarily diverting services away from the hospital site in Edmonton as they were receiving an influx of patients because of the virus.

The stadium hosted antenatal, gynaecology and obstetric services within its facilities, attending to more than 40,000 outpatient appointments, with hospital staff seeing more than 200 new patients every day.

North Mid’s Chief Executive Maria Kane said: “It’s hard to express how grateful we are to Tottenham Hotspur, and how much of a positive impact the club’s generosity has had on local health services during this pandemic.

“North Mid was one of the first hospitals in England to experience the huge impact of COVID-19, and it’s completely natural that women were concerned about coming for antenatal clinics and other maternity appointments – by mid-March, more than one in seven of our women’s outpatient appointments resulted in a patient not attending.

“By transferring these services to the fantastic Spurs stadium, which was both a spacious and welcoming location, […] we were able to reassure local people how important it is for our services to be safe so they could have the confidence they needed to continue to get the care they deserve.”

The maternity services are returning to the main North Mid site, however, the drive-through COVID-19 testing service that has been operating from the stadium’s basement car park will remain. The testing service will take on up to 2,000 patients who are due to undergo planned operations in north London, running seven days each week.

Maria Kane added: “Our relationship with Tottenham Hotspur remains incredibly strong, and it’s wonderful to see two such important organisations locally work so well together for the genuine benefit of the local community.

“Like the NHS, sometimes the background players in Premier League football don’t always get much time in the spotlight, so on behalf of North Mid’s patients, staff and local community, I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone at Tottenham Hotspur, especially chairman Daniel Levy, for their selfless hard work in making this partnership so beneficial for our shared local population.”

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