Independent Midwives - Any views/experiences?

[MotherofOne]

Has anyone got any first (or second) -hand experience of using an independent (i.e. private) midwife for their (NHS hospital) birth?
The birth of my first child in 1999 left me with doubts about the level and standard of midwife cover in NHS hospitals and I wondered about investigating the possibility of having my 'own' midwife there for the birth of No. 2 in July.
With ds I had 3 midwives over 15 hours (none of whom I'd ever met before) and the last one, who turned up just as I was getting into 2nd stage seemed virtually unable to speak any English, other than shouting "Pooosh into your bottom" at me and didn't understand when I said I wanted to change position etc etc. I ended up with an emergency CS, and still can't help feeling that with better MW care and communication might have avoided this.
Is an independent MW there for you all the way through? How do they work alongside the NHS MWs - can they administer pain relief etc etc?

Suew - thanks for your info - I'm in Nottingham (South) and my nearest hospital is QMC so if you have any IM or doula contact numbers I'd be very grateful!!

thirtysomething
I had ds at QMC and dd at City - and in both cases the aftercare was apalling - don't know whether they were just understaffed or demotivated etc but my midwife (community - from castle donnington) was brilliant. I've moved south now but if I was there now I would certainly go down the road of having a private midwife for after the birth if my old one was unavailable. I've heard QMC is brilliant for any major problems though but in my experience just no good for so called straightforward births!

Thirtysomething, i had my twins at QMC and i agree the aftercare was appaling. However, the antenatal care was superb, my consultant had all the time in the world for me, the midwives in the antenatal OPD were sweeties and my labour, first twin vaginal and second emergency section, was handled professionally and basically saved my dd's life. My advice to to find a good consultant, and build a good rapport with your comunity midwife (mine was fantastic)

Bossykate - so sorry to hear that. hugs