Which hospital for someone who lives in NW3? Have read nasty things about Royal Free

[Michelle10]

I live near Hampstead in London and am trying to decide which hospital to attend and have to admit complete confusion. I chose the Royal Free in Hampstead for proximity to home. I did their maternity ward tour early in my pregnancy and thought their wards looked great, very clean, organised and caring midwives. My 12 week registration and visit with their community midwives was also very positive and in spite of hearing some horror stories from friends which I dismissed as snobbery, I was feeling very comfortable with my choice. Then, on my way home from my appointment, I spotted a shocking headline from a local newspaper, Ham & High, exposing the Royal Free maternity wards, alleging "abusive" and negligent midwives, shocking care and approx 20 complaints so far this year. My confidence in them is shattered and am considering St John & Elizabeth, UCH and St Mary's Paddington. Am happy with NHS but would also consider private if I can convince myself it is worth it. My GP has also told me that changing at this stage will be really difficult, so am not expecting this to be an easy ride. Desperately need some advice please....

If you're going private St John & Liz. Of the other choices... UCH every time. Stay away from St Mary's!

What about the Whittington? Great hospital!

i changed from royal free to john and lizzies in first pregnancy after run in with (farkin rude) consultant at routine appointment. john and lizzies (especially yehudi gordon) FAB. dont know any current info on other hospitals.

I love the Whit. Spend a lot of time there. One of the better N London hospitals.

I had dd1 at the Royal Free, it was fine for me. I had gas and air no tearing or stitches. My midwife was fab. I hadn't been to any antenatel classes or visited the hospitals. She said oh you should have had this baby at home and it stuck with me and I had dd2 at home, which will probably always be the highest point of my life.

I was offered RF, UCH and Barnet General.

At the time I didn't know that the former two deal with a lot of high risk pregnancies, I think they have everything in place to deal with anything going wrong.

My friends at the same time had their babies at Barnet General not good and the Whittington which sounded better.

The Royal Free was closest to where we lived.

My DS is 12 now but I refused to go to the Royal Free to have him despite living virtually next door, as even that long ago, its reputation was so bad.

My friend had a horrible experience giving birth at the Whitt.

UCH considered the best at the moment round here.

I think that the trouble with UCH and Royal Free would be that they tend to specialize in high risk cases and if you are not you could get bumped.

It was fab for me at the RF, I would have done it again straight away afterwards, may have been high on the love hormones, but it was lovely.

Hi there. I won't post at length, but just to add - I had a shockingly bad experience at the Royal Free in 2005. I'd never step foot inside the place again to be honest.

I've heard good things from several friends about the Whittington. Apparently its a bit shabby, but the midwivery team are superb.

I think there have been a few threads along this line and for every poster that can share a negative experience (including for J&L/ Portland) - there is another poster who describes an experience second to none. And it is confusing as hell. My advice would be to go with what you feel comfortable with. If your personal experience to date has been fantastic and your care there superb, what does your gut instinct say? Obviously - if you arent comfortable there now - then irrespective of what GP says - try and change.

Agree with previous poster to a large extent BUT - where a hospital has been slammed over a fairly lengthy period of time for a catalogue of worrying failures (as in Royal Free), surely its best to go with that, rather than anecdotal evidence (whether good or bad) OR 'instinct' (I went with my instincts - they were wrong!).

Go with instincts (I went for Royal Free), but I would choose J&L or UCH otherwise.

My birth experience was traumatic, but I don't think that had anything to do with the Royal Free.

There's another thread on this topic which turned into a Whittington love-in...

Just wanted to add I had DS at the Royal Free in 2005 and had a really good experience. Midwife and birth centre were fantastic, doctors excellent when awkward position of DS meant I needed an epidural and forceps.
Post natal care and breastfeeding support were pretty poor, but that seems to be the case everywhere.
I've read about the two babies whose deaths are being investigated in the local press, and yeah, it sure is concerning. But i just read the article you mentioned in the Ham and High, and I don't think it's a useful piece of reporting. Of course there are going to be people who've had a bad experience in every hospital. And a raw number of complaints is not a very useful statistic, from my experience working for the NHS many complaints are not valid and most of the people who have a very valid cause for complaint don't. Don't know if you get more complaints in richer areas, I would suspect you might?
Anyway, I just wanted to say if you feel your experience of the hospital has been good, then I wouldn't change your mind because of one attention grabbing headline in the local press. They don't sell papers by saying 'generally speaking, most people find giving birth at the Royal Free is fine'.
And there's a lot to be said for using your local hospital.
But having said all that, I'm going to the Whittington this time...

I had ds at st mary's 5 months ago. Labour ward was very good post natal not wonderful but that's unfortunately the case for most London hospitals. A friend of mine had at UCH and had a really bad time during labour bordering on negligent. Another friend of mine also had there and was fine. Post natal also quite grim there.

The only good experience I've heard from royal free is someone who had baby in ambulance on way there!! We had community midwives from RF after birth and they were not great.

J&L is meant to be problematic if anything goes wrong particularly with the baby. You have the chance of being in one hospital and your baby in another.

Hi, I had mine in J&L (Jan 04), it was amazing, the midwifes are like angels.

Came across this new website (not sure is it officially out, very very new), called Babyfy.com, they have a list of all the big hospitals / birth units with loads of information, really helps to compare hospitals... see what J&L are offering.

www.babyfy.com/index.php/hospital-review/2338/London/The-Hospital-of-St-John---St-Elizabeth/

www.babyfy.com/index.php/hospital-review/2818/London/The-Royal-Free-Hospital--Main-Labour-war d-/

www.babyfy.com/index.php/default/hospital/