Bad reviews of all my local hospitals?!!!

[leannac]

What can I do? I had an awful experience at Kingston hospital last year so am scared to go back there. Tooting takes too long to get to. Was thinking about st helier but now I read awful reviews of there too. Is there seriously no hospital in south west London that doesn't have horror stories in maternity units???

The problem is that majority of people only air their views if their negative. There's very few that publicly say they had a great experience (me included).

I'd heard some terrible experiences relating to one of local hospitals (calderdale royal), but if it wasn't for the wonderful midwifes and other staff me and/or our baby boy may not have been here. They were wonderful, but like so many people i have not put on a review board that they were great.

A lot of time you need to take what people say with a pinch of salt. Xx

lean

you need to ask around, we had one hosp near us that is putting lives in danger - the best responses were " well you get what you expect really, not much"

however the other hosp - people said " amazing, wonderful, so clean so efficient" etc....

so i dont think its true if you ask round as much as you can - if somewhere is good people will tell you....

sadly all our hosps are creaking under massive strain in maternity services so even the good ones round me now have worryingly high still birth rates and other problems.

they are caught between a rock and a hard place, population boom due to immigration and no midwifre numbers or resouces to back it up.

I had to go to my once excellent hosp on saturday, i was there for four hours- one MW came rushing out of labour room on phone saying she needed an interpreter quickly, took hours just to get a trace on me, one poor doctor was trying to see us all - as well as answer desperate questions from other staff and all the while another lady was sayinbhg " doc you need to come now - the ctg doesnt look good we need to deliver this baby NOW".

Oh no :(

The thing is like nicki said, we only ever hear about the bad things because that tends to be what people broadcast. That's why if I ever have a good experience I now make a point of telling everybody and writing reviews.

Why don't you go and see if you can visit and have a look round?

Unfortunately headlines such as "I had a baby at Nasty Hospital and it was all fine" just don't make the headlines!!
Most hospitals are very aware if they are getting poor "reviews" and want to do something about it - however the bad news tends to stick!
You call look at overall rates of things like c-sections on Birthchoice UK - which will give an overall idea of how many normal births there are etc

You can ask questions too - especially if you want to use a birthing pool - if hospital A have a pool and do 20 waterbirths a year and hosptial B have a pool and do 200 waterbirths a year I think I would opt for Hospital B because waterbirth there is normal IYSWIM

The other thing you can do is see if you can tour the unit - even units which say they don't do tours and have on-line virtual tours - if you ring and speak to a midwife and explain you are trying to chose and would really like to come in and see for yourself - you can usually wangle a little look round.

Then go with your instinct - nice and clean and shiny and new is all very well but are all the staff looking harrassed and stressed or happy and smiley? Did the new family you saw leaving look cheery or pissed off? You can pick up a lot this way!

Home birth? I've had 2 and if your pregnancy is going well and you've had no complications its worth a thought. Plus from my experience you get 2 midwives who can't leave and see another women in labour or do shift changes, your 2 midwives are yours until the baby arrives.
I would love a home birth with no. 4 but it may be tricky, still fingers crossing he'll arrive at home. All the best. :)

I had DS at St Helier in 2010 and had a mostly positive experience. The mws were as attentive as they could be, given the poor staffing levels, and the staff in NICU were great. Postnatal ward was grim, but not more than I expected tbh and a lot of that was because of my birth issues rather than the hospital as a whole. Hope that helps somewhat, feel free to pm me if you have any q's.

Not sure how near you are to chertsey, but st peters is very good, it reputation is rubbish and I begged and begged west mid to take me but they said no. I even intended on waiting til labour was established and turning up a different hospital, ended up in st peters and honestly can't fault them.

It clean and friendly and staff are helpful. But if you read about it on the Internet you wouldn't want to go there, people often Only leave bad reviews, which reminds me I must leave a positive one for them

griphook I had a good experience at st peters too and also try to leave good posts when it comes up, in the hope of giving a balanced view.