UCLH private rooms in post-natal

[BettyBi0]

Are there any private rooms at UCLH anymore? When I had Dd1 I remember they had a couple but it was first come first served and ££. Can't remember how much but we only managed to get one the second night. I'd have paid trough the nose as the first night in the shared room was mental.

I see on their website that they are pushing the private rooms at the Fitzrovia suite now but they are £850 a night! Do they do the half- way private rooms anymore where you have NHS midwives but just a bit more privacy for £200 ish?

They haven't replied to my phone message or emails yet so hopefully one of you will have used them recently!

Just to update...... Yes they have got rid of their old system of room upgrades and now if you want a single side room it is £850 a night !?!? And you can't book/guarantee you'll have one either!

Welcome to the Tory (privatised) NHS

Labour (Barabara Castle) abolished pay beds in the NHS back in the 1970s, but they have been creeping back since New Labour.

They sell spare beds at the rate that people will pay for them (I think those who do not believe in a 2 tier NHS price them to deter).

Beds in rooms are however allocated first according to clinical need. In ours the top categories are those whose babies were still born and those requiring infection control, after that it's for parents of babies in intensive care and those with other exceptional medical requirements, followed by super multiples and other multiples. Only after that are places sold to those who have preference rather than need.

Ours offer then for £80 a night which I thought was a bit much but Christ £850!!

They shouldn't be sold at all in my opinion. It should only be allocated on a needs basis.

It would be great if there were enough separate rooms for all birthing mothers to have some privacy and quiet bonding time. It seems like most hospitals ante natal wards are universally rammed and noisy. Such a shame when birth is hardly an every day experience.

It feels so wrong that someone with a stillbirth might have to go into a bay full of mothers with babies because they didn't have £850 kicking around or even if the £850 rooms were all booked out by private ELCS patients.

The rooms at UCLH do go to those in need for free first and then if they are free. Not that it makes it any better £850 is disgusting but it doesn't stop those in need from getting a room :)

I meant to say 'and then get offered to those who want to pay if they are free.'

I was told that the £850 was for a Fitzrovia suite room and that the 2 single rooms that they used to sell on the nhs post-natal bit were no longer available.

Bloody hell when I had DC1 there 6 years ago it was £200ish quid but not available

When I had my DC there not that long ago, if you were on the midwife unit you were very likely indeed to get your own room regardless. Which I did. With my first I was on the labour unit and asked for one but they were all gone. Actually, I preferred the very small, friendly ward experience with my newborn. I did overhear one woman complaining that her room that she had paid for had been taken away, until another woman told her very pointedly the sad reason why the other woman had been given it and to count her blessings. That ended that complaint immediately.

£850!!!! A friend of mine managed to get a free room after she gave birth as she worked for the NHS Trust.... This wasn't at UCH.