The hospital was commissioned by the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board in the late 1960s, designed by the British architect John Weeks and built by Trollope & Colls. The design of the hospital was largely inspired by British obsolescence studies, in which a loose-jointed medical complex was created with flexibility to withstand obsolescence's unpredictable effects. With only a fixed internal street system, the architects referred to the hospital as "an indeterminate architecture" with "no final plan" – free to grow and change over time. It was opened by the Queen in 1970. It takes its name from Northwick Park, which is next to it. In 1994, St Mark's Hospital, previously located 10 miles away in central London, moved into a wing of the hospital formerly occupied by the Medical Research Council. While fighting extradition for murder and torture General Augusto Pinochet was a patient at Northwick Park Hospital in January 2000. In 2005, the hospital's maternity department was named as having one of the highest death rates in the United Kingdom. During the period April 2002 to March 2004, the maternal death rate for the maternity unit was 74.2 per 100,000, 6.5 times the national average of 11.4 per 100,000, as reported by Cemach. A range of "special measures" designed to improve maternity services and public confidence in the services was agreed with the Trust and these were all complied with within a year, but as of 2016 the Trust's maternity and gynaecology services were rated as 'requires improvement' by the Care Quality Commission. A 2016 Care Quality Commission report rated Northwick Park Hospital as 'requires improvement' overall, with only one out of eight assessment areas attaining a better rating. The report highlighted a number of concerns found during inspection visits, including that surgical staff were not always reporting incidents, patients experienced long waits, compliance with safeguarding training was poor, examples of poor infection control practice, a poor environment on the stroke wards, and that nutrition and hydration was poorly managed. The Commission subsequently issued the Trust with a Section 29 warning notice.
Facilities
The hospital provides a full range of services including paediatrics, maxillofacial, orthopaedics, neurology, cardiology, elderly care medicine and a regional rehabilitation unit for patients with additional on-going acute medical needs. St Mark's Hospital, a national centre of gastrointestinal medicine is based at the same site, as is the British Olympic Association's Olympic Medical Institute. Local charity Radio Harrow is based within the hospital and has provided a patient visiting and broadcasting service since 1971. Northwick Park is one of the few hospitals in England to have a paternoster lift transport system, but it is currently not in use.
TGN incident
On 13 March 2006, six people in a clinical trial at the independent Parexel drug trial unit became severely unwell following administration of TGN1412, and were transferred to the intensive therapy unit at Northwick Park. Affected patients developed multi-organ failure and required intensive medical support by the critical care team at Northwick Park, led by Dr Ganesh Suntharalingam. All the patients subsequently survived and the last one was discharged in June 2006. Victims from this drug trial sought compensation for their multiple injuries with the help of a British law firm. Parexel, the American company responsible for the clinical trial, brought their own lawyers along for the hearings about the TGN1412 drug, billed as a possible wonder cure for arthritis, multiple sclerosis and leukaemia. The compensation money will largely be spent on equipment, adaptations and assistance they will need with their injuries. The incident was featured in the BBC 2 programme The Drug Trial: Emergency at the Hospital which aired in February 2017.
Northwick Park is the setting for the Channel 4British sitcomGreen Wing. The hospital features in the seventh series of ITV's Prime Suspect. In the 1976 film The Omen, the external scene when Katherine's body falls from a window and crashes into a parked ambulance was filmed at Northwick Park Hospital. In episode 6, series 1 of Fawlty Towers, Sybil Fawlty is in Northwick Park Hospital for ingrown toenail surgery. Basil later joins her after he gets concussion during the fire drill. Before becoming the lead singer for Duran Duran, Simon Le Bon worked as a theatre porter at Northwick Park Hospital.
