World-first partnership between North Mid and Spurs stadium shortlisted for second major health award
Stadium’s hosting of North Mid antenatal and women’s outpatient services through to final of ‘NHS Oscars’ for innovative use of built environment
The groundbreaking partnership between North Mid and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club has been shortlisted for a further prestigious award, for the innovative use of the built environment in support of healthcare.
The arrangement brought a new dimension to North Mid’s long-standing relationship with THFC, when the hospital and club agreed a wholesale ‘lift and shift’ of antenatal and women’s outpatient services at the height of the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic in April 2020.
It saw the state-of-the-art stadium host antenatal, gynaecology and obstetric services in its spacious facilities, as well as ongoing use of its underground car park to host drive-through covid-19 testing for staff and patients.
'Lift and shift' over Easter weekend
Over Easter weekend in April 2020, teams from both organisations specialising in estates, buildings management, IT, operations, and North Mid’s clinicians, spent a packed 72 hours getting the new facility ready to welcome women.
The stadium’s state-of-the-art media lounge became a spacious reception and relaxing waiting area, the ‘flash interview rooms’ where post-match TV interviews are normally carried out, became consulting rooms, the stadium’s own emergency medical room became a foetal medicine unit, and changing rooms were changed into specialist clinics for diabetes, high BMI, mental health, infectious diseases and other important care issues.
More than 41,000 antenatal and outpatient appointments
Throughout the partnership period from April until July, more than 41,000 antenatal and women’s outpatient appointments took place, with staff seeing more than 200 new patients every day. The stadium continues to host drive-through covid-19 testing on an appointment basis.
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, as well separate from our main hospital site, 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.”
THFC chairman Daniel Levy said:
“We are delighted that our unique partnership with North Middlesex University Hospital has been recognised within the healthcare industry and extremely proud of how successful the transferral of clinical services to our stadium has been during these unprecedented times.
“Our multi-use stadium sits at the very heart of its community, and we reached out immediately to offer use of its world-class facilities in assisting our wonderful NHS in tackling the pandemic.
“Seeing our stadium brought to life by hard-working hospital staff and hundreds of patients coming through our doors every day when no football was being played is something that gave inspiration to us all during a difficult period.”
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 thankyou 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.”