I think the trick is to expect poor quality aftercare and hope that you'll be pleasantly surprised. With both my two deliveries, I found the staff really dedicated and hardworking, but oh, just woefully overstretched. I was in 5 days with my first due to complications, and was in tears most of the time due to the pain which wasn't really controlled(VERY good advice from the poster who said to keep an eye on when you need pain relief and ask for it way in advance - I would go so far as take in your own paracetamol,then you can administer it yourself. Getting home after those 5 days was bliss, and was the best thing that I ever did.
Second time around, the delivery was laughably easy, got to the hospital at 5.30am, delivered at 7.30am, and home by 5.30pm. Thank god the delivery was so wonderful, as the aftercare was terrible. I was taken to the suture room directly across the corridor from my delivery room for a couple of stitches, left on the bed with my leg in stirrups bleeding all over the bed, and with the call button out of reach. The midwife who was going to stitch me up left the room for something and came back NEARLY AN HOUR LATER. In that time, no-one had come in to me, and I was left all on my own not knowing what was going on or when she'd come back. I could hear my baby screaming and screaming for me across the corridor and all I could think about was him, and my poor husband who I knew would be tearing his hair out with worry.
The midwife finally came back and did apologise, and it's fair enough that she was needed more urgently elsewhere, but I can't help feeling that it was a bit barbaric to be just abandoned in that situation. I felt like a piece of meat on a slab.
I was so glad to get home and so grateful for the great delivery I had that I just put the poor aftercare out of my mind. I also felt so sorry for the overworked and stressed midwives, some of whom were working double shifts with no break (I know cos I asked them) that I felt that I had no right to complain about individual members of staff.
It's all down to the poor management of the NHS, the staffing levels are appalling - it was worrying to hear comments from a student midwife to her supervisor "there's a woman in room 10 who's doing involuntary pushing and she has no member of staff with her", and all hell breaking loose because they simply HAVE to find a free member of staff to deliver the baby.
My best advice would certainly be to expect very very basic aftercare, and get home as soon as possible, so you can be looked after properly and begin to recover properly. That's if you can find a member of staff who can do the discharge procedure - I had to wait 3 hours, I felt like just walking out, but again, you just know that they WOULD come to see to you if only they COULD, so I was fairly understanding and patient.