Northwick Park Hospital has a second spike contingency plan in place should Covid levels rise to heights seen in April.

Martin Kuper, medical director of London North West Hospital Trust, which manages the Watford Road hospital, said there has been a “small” increase in the number of admissions but the situation is being closely monitored.

Between March 4 and 23 September 585 people died of Covid-19 at the hospital.

More than 2,000 people have been treated at there since March.

There were 449 cases in March which jumped to 1,398 admissions in April.

During May there was 301 cases which dropped to 68 in June and continued to fall with 12 cases in the first two weeks of September.

Mr Kuper, said: “The trust has contingency plans for a second wave and we are monitoring the situation closely.

“There has been an increase in the number of patients being admitted with Covid in the past week but it remains small.”

Among the contingency plans to deal with a second spike is the doubling the number of permanent critical care beds.

“We have plans on how we would increase it further if we saw a sudden increase in demand again – including areas in the hospital that we have allocated to use flexibly depending on need,” he said.

“We have geographically separated our planned care pathways from our emergency and unplanned care pathways, so that our patients who need routine care can still get it safely.

“We’ve put in rigorous infection control measures, including screening questions and temperature checks at the front door.”

There are also plans to redeploy staff “as and when needed”.

Mr Kruper added: “The public has an important role to play in helping us keep infection rates down by observing social distancing, wearing face masks and washing their hands.”