Choosing a hospital in London - HELP please for first time mum

[kiteflying]

I am a first time nervous mum at 39 - my precious bean is the result of a succesful IVF procedure and no way am I taking any risks with him or her. I have already had one miscarriage scare and am doubly anxious. So we looked at hospitals early - I am only nine weeks now, and were astonished at how grubby and plain awful the three hospitals we were given to choose from were. We live in Islington and were told we have to chose from the Whittington, UCH and Royal Free. UCH was where we had our fertility referral work done and I had an infection after an internal scan in their ante-natal clinic. Scary and definitely not somewhere I would hazard twice! Our GP referred us to St Thomas' because of my concerns about my age, precious IVF pregnancy, and early miscarriage scare, and our MASSIVE (though diplomatically expressed) concerns over safety and hygiene at the three hospitals we were offered. St Thomas' have now written back to refuse me unless I have a medical reason for being referred there. I don't understand - I thought at thirty-nine (I will be forty when the baby is due) I would be automatically classed as high risk and accepted there, especially as I am rather anxious to have access to an EPU after my earlier scare. Is there anything I can do? Does anyone have any words of comfort that might make me more accepting of the North London choices we have been given?

Birthchoice might be useful.

Had DD1 at Whittington,horrible place,filthy and nasty MW,dd and i were 5mins away from dying according to consultent.Had dd2 at John and Lizzies,expensive but worth it for feeling of safety and trust

Royal Free has good rates of "normal birth" compared to the others according to the stats, which I would find encouraging.

I agree with Uwila about QC - their stats don't look great but that is because they get sent a lot of difficult cases from all over London. If you're interested in going there, get your GP to write to them right away.

The "caring" side of things at QC was dreadful, I had a horrendous labour and one thing happened on the post-natal ward which bordered on negligence BUT the medical side of things when they had potentially serious concerns about my health (and the baby's) was good. I even had a highly competent SHO. If you have a straightforward pregnancy, you would be able to go to the active birth unit which has an excellent reputation.

Actually, the Birth Centre at the Royal Free is pretty good - clean and very midwifery led, with excellent new facilities, if you are straight forward and can get in there. It might be worth a call and a look around it.

The ante / postnatal wards are grim though if you end up there for any reason, although most people go home from the BC delivery room itself a few hours following the birth.

hi there
i'm 39 wks and about to have no. 3 at the Royal Free birth centre. we're newish to this area and chose the RF over Whittington which is a stones throw from us. a friend of mine had twins the other day got given a gift by her sister of a private midwife. i'd never heard of them but she said it was the most amazing thing and meant she did most of her labour at home and was in and out of the hosp. in 3 hrs (with twins!) her midwife came home with her then will visit each day for the first 10 days and looks after you for 6 wks in all. they can't be 'hands on' during the delivery but can act as a doula (spelling?!) no idea what the cost is but way chepaer than moving into the area as to be honest a lot of your care experience depends which midwife you happen to get the day you go in. i had no. 1 at Queen Charlottes in W. London and they are suppposed to be one of the best maternity hosp. in Europe. i was really impressed with the midwives at the royal free birth centre. other option is to have a home birth and then it can be as hygienic as you like!

Uwila, no I have not booked anywhere. I was referred to St Thomas' after Islington PCT approved my funding and have had the letter refusing to take me as of yesterday when I started this thread. I won't book in somewhere until I am happy. Did you get in to QC by changing GP or just by being there when you went into labour?

Jellyhead - my funding was already approved so it was not financial, just the fact that too many people want to go there I think.

Thanks Mintpurple and qsack. I will have the tour but to be honest I am not overly confident.

I guess it comes down to the probability that this will be my only baby, and I absolutely don't want my choice or lack of choice to mean the baby is not safe. I am quite infuriated that so far from easy to get safe hygienic care with proper staffing in one of the biggest cities (and centres of medical learning) in the world.

Home birth is probably not an option for me as we have two indoor cats.

By changing to a lovely GP who wrote a sincere letter. Basically when I refused St Peter's she said right we will probably have to look at London (after Kingston and WEst Middlesex both turned me down for being outside of their catchments). I saod okay (knowing I had to give her something to work with). She said would you prefer Chelsea and Westminster or Queen Charlotte? And I (already having researched the stats) said Queen Charlotte please. And a couple of weeks later I got a big packet in the mail sayin gI had been accepted and had a booking in appointment at around 16 weeks.

The hospital was a nit far, but I was happy that I was in the safe hands of competant doctors (I knew I wanted a section as I had already had one).

Hi Kiteflying

Sorry to hear of your stressful time. It must feel really frustrating at a time when you want some peace of mind.

I work in a London Hospital and ALL my medical pregnant friends in North London chose the Homerton to have their deliveries. (One even chose to deliver there despite living in Greenwich, South London). There is a lovely female obstetrician there apparently (don't know the name but is the only woman one there) who they all went to. It also has an excellent intensive care and neonatal intensive care unit, just in case. It may be worth seeing if you could go and have a look around if your GP would consider referring you there.

Whatever you do - best of luck
GG

katerina erskine is the female obstetrician at the homerton. lovely (she looked after me ).

Thats her! Could not remember the name - Thanks Hoxton!

I've had two good births at the Royal Free and can recommend it.

Neither time was I in the midwife-led birthing unit, but both times the midwives looking after me positively encouraged me to have a natural birth.

That didn't quite happen the first time (Sept '02), but the second time (July '06) was a textbook natural birth. Both the medicalized and non-medicalized births were positive experiences with quick recovery.

The wards are nothing special, the food iffy (but has improved comparing 2002 and 2006). Birthing rooms have had major overhaul. Ward staff pleasant and responsive to my requests (even got them to bring me food at 2am); the problem is checking out due to lack of paediatricians to do final checks.

We'll be paying taxes and NI all our lives - and sometimes the NHS can positively surprise.

Something else you might want to consider is the nuchal test privately at Fetal Medicine Centre. They are wonderful. And if downs is a worry, the peace of mind alone is worth the price (About £130 I think?).

Hi No personal experience of giving birth in North of the river hospitals but can't see why Royal Free wouldn't be OK. I'm sure there are EPU units all over London, the one at St Thomas' was somewhat less than average imho. All NHS hospitals can appear grubby, the post-natal wards at St Thomas are vile and last time I was there they had removed all the plugs and the shower head holder was broken. (Every midwife I came accross kept telling me about the lovely shower/bath I was about to have and it would have been great since our bathroom is freezing!) Also difficult to get midwife care locally if you are out of area!

I live in Islington and went to UCH for the birth of my son. Some of the midwives were OK, but others and the one I had throughout the labour which was an agency midwife wasn't anyone I would want to remember. I had a long labour 24hrs and suffered heart failure afterwards. The midwives were still useless, but when it came to saving my life there were suddenly alot of very capable doctors and nurses around. I have heard the Whittington is awfull, but yes St Thomas's is good.

The UK system sucks to high heaven. In the Czech Republic you can choose from any hospital in the country. There are no catchment areas. And, not surprisingly, hospitals compete with each other and raise their game.

Sorry that isn't too helpful, but the UK system makes me so angry. If I'd stayed in London I'd be in the catchment area for QC, but whoopee, that doesn't make me any the less angry on behalf of other people.

Has anyone heard from poppynic who was being induced last week? Maybe I should check the January ante-natal club thread.

Hi Kiteflying - I had both mine at St Thomas', and I used the private midwife service they offer. I'm not sure whether this is still on offer there, though, but it was unbelievably brilliant, so if finances can stretch, I would really really recommend it. My midwife was an angel and I had her throughout my pregnancies - I had a complicated delivery with dd which ended up in an abruption and they could not have been better. I was whisked into surgery and had a section in under 10 minutes from them finding I was bleeding. The consultant who ended up actually doing my c-sections first and second time round is a Ghananian guy called Eugene, who is just great - really calm and experienced. I am a complete evangelist of St T's though, expensive as it was, we were really pleased. Couldn't vouch for the NHS side of things though - sorry. HTH

Big fan of Eugene at St Thomas's too. He was the only one who could cut through the bureaucracy.

Hello,

I'm newish to London and completely new to using any hospital services here. I'm trying to get pregnant now so I'm just doing a little research. I'll be 36 (at least) at the birth and it will be my first child so I'm a bit cautious/scared/nervous. My husband and I live in E17 and I was pretty unhappily suprised at my ob/gyn options. (We just got a house here.) I have heard Whipps Cross is pretty poor (according to friend) but heard a different hospital in Hackney was far worse (same woman, 1st child, don't recall hospital name).

This might have been covered a million times, but if someone can point me to some general information about getting a good hospital, it would be helpful. For example, how do I get to go to say Homerton instead of Whipps Cross? Can I just ask my gp [who i've never met, just registered].

I emailed to get some information about the private facilities of Chelsea & Westminster. Does anyone know the rough figure of what private costs? Not necessarily there, just in general. I don't think we'll mind going into credit to do it, but hopefully I'm not dreaming that it might be an option.

Thanks for your help. Sorry for such a long post. Hope you all are well.

When you get pregnant, your first port of call will be your GP. They'll tell you which local hospitals they normally book women into. The midwives from that hospital may have a session at the surgery for ante-natal appts, which can be handy.

If you want to widen the net, Mumsnet (search the threads - there are loads), Dr Fosters and Birthchoice will give you info on the pros and cons of various hospitals. And, of course, go visit them! See the facilities for yourself.

You aren't going to want to travel far in labour, so you'll be limited to a certain extent by your locality.

Private hospitals are about £7k for the full ante-natal and birth package, but you can do it for less if you only stay in for a night. St John's & Elizabeths used to have the price list on their website. See if it's still there.

Hope that helps.

Thanks BrummieOnTheRun.

The Whittington! It's wonderful there. Had 4 babies there and have had different clients whose babies have been born there.

Plus there's a rather cute twinkly eyed registrar there!

Oh and the Whit have an NHS acupunturist and a consultant who is an acupunturist and a homeopath. They may not have a birthing unit, but the midwives are gorgeous there (attitude as well as looks lol).

Without wishing to go into my experiences with the Whittington, I don't think it's entirely accurate to describe it as 'wonderful'