What would happen if you went to the 'wrong' hospital?

[jenrose29]

Hi, I have a strange question! I am 27 weeks pregnant and booked into hospital for the birth. The problem is, the hospital is at least one hour, up to one and three quarter hours if in traffic, away. There is a very good hospital which is only 28 miles away but is in a different county and so I cannot book in there. If I went in to labour and just went to the closer one (if there was a concern I wouldn't make it to the other one in time) would they have to take me in??

in a word, yes!

Hmm this interests me too! My local hospital - only about 5 miles away - has a CLU which I've heard described as 'clinical', 'overstretched' etc.

About 40 miles away is a lovely MLU (attached to a hosp) which is known for its forward thinking.

I am not worried about the time so much as when I get pg it will be the first time so expect it to take weeks some time but I would so like to just go along to the MLU!!

You can book where you like. I'm booked in a hospital in a different county cause we are so close to the boarder. It's the nearest. Only slight prob is my midwife is under my county so will not be at the birth as she works for a different Heath authority.

You can book wherever you want.

Or just turn up in labour. If you do though you are likely to need all your bloods redoing as your results will probably be in a different computer system.

You can book in wherever you want. And just because you are booked into a hospital doesn't mean you will give birth there - sometimes a maternity unit is so busy they have to "close"; which means the only way they will admit you is if you are literally just about to give birth. This happens reasonably often in the South East (I have been a case they couldn't turn away).
But I would request changing your booking to the nearer hospital, I'm surprised the mid-wife didn't offer this if the time getting there is that great (my DC 3 would have been a home birth or born in the Ambulance with that time of travel). For my first I was offered two hospitals, one was in the next county.

where i live that wouldn't work. I have a choice of the hospital of the MLU. The MLU however is unstaffed, so if i just turned up i wouldn't even be able to get through the door!

I changed hospitals at 25 weeks with DD due to similar issues 'overstaffed, quick turnarounds etc' soooooo glad i did. I know someone who deilivered same day as me at the first hospital, in and out in 6 hrs, and has had suc issues with BF; however I stayed in 2 days in a private room until i was happy with bf. AMAZING experience.

Go for it. Rebook. THat is what NHS choices is all about. x ps have you considered homebirth?

my SIL went to the wrong hospital (because she went into labour early when visiting her mum) and when she got to the new one there was a delay because they wouldn't do anything whatsoever until they had painstakingly copied all the information in her notes from her old hospital's format to their own.

I would try to rebook - speak to your midwife or you could call the second hospital to see if they would accept you transferring to their care.

You should have been able to choose initially. I personally live in one area, my GP is based in a second area and I am using a hospital in a third area. I was offered the choice of 3 hospitals, one in each area. I refused one ( in my GP area) due to a bad rep for intervention and the fact the travel time is twice that to the other hospitals due to our relative location. Of the other two, I chose the one I preferred (out of area as opposed to one in the area I live).

The slight irony is that I have antenatal care from midwives under the hospital I am booked with; but post- natal care will apparently be with midwives from the second hospital ( because I am in that area). And the Health Visitors are based in the third area (as this is GP linked).

you can try to book where ever you want but they don't have to accept you. They can tell you that they are too busy, even if you plead with them. The fact that you have a choice as to which hospital you attend is an illusion.

do I sound bitter????

The thing is there is only 10 miles difference between the distance to each, but the traffic getting to one is much worse than to the other. I may be being optimisic anyway, seeing as my daughter took 37 hours to arrive! I initially wanted a homebirth, but the hospitals being so far away puts me off. Not in terms of pain relief etc as I am sure what I want (or rather don't want!) but just in case anything went wrong.

You may find the hospital aren't very pleased.

When I had DD, I was high-risk and would need the neo-natal unit as well as the specialist psych unit on-hand, I wasn't allowed to leave London after 36 weeks just in case.

When I went into labour, I couldn't get a room for 6 hours as they were all full - fortunately I was in labour for 54 hours and so did get one eventually. I did not think highly of the people who just happened to be in London that day (strangely with appropriate bag packed).

The midwives told me that since the hospital had such a good reputation people were always just 'turning up accidently on purpose' and it was becoming a real problem for them. The hospital has a children's hospital on site and a lot of the women they saw were high-risk cases. If they could they shipped the 'turn-ups' out to other hospitals.

Knowing how pissed off they were about it, I think I'd prefer to give birth with someone there who wasn't slightly hacked off that I'd just turned up.