ELCS - Pembury, East Surrey or Epsom?

[Givemepickles]

Has anyone recently given birth at Pembury in Tunbridge Wells or East Surrey and Sussex hospital or Epsom hospital? I'm struggling to choose. East Surrey is my "local" hospital though still far away. I've started the process of booking in a ELCS there. Don't know how easy it would be to switch to another hospital if I want to? Has anyone done this?

I keep hearing awful things about East Surrey's maternity wards and especially postnatal which is putting me off.

Pembury is an hour from me so the furthest away but they have private rooms in postnatal I believe. Postnatal is a big concern for me so having a private room takes away that anxiety.

Any experiences please 🙏

Actually, maybe I can't choose Epsom or Pembury anyway because they're under different NHS Trusts than mine. Does anyone know?

Ask your midwife if you can be referred.

My advice would be to choose the nearest hospital - you really don't want to be a long way from home when discharged from hospital. Can't picture where you're located but it's a fair ol' hike between Epsom and Pembury.

Thanks for your reply. I'm in Sussex. All the hospitals are between 30 - 60 mins from me. I'm not fussed about the journey back. An hour in the car is nothing compared to potentially days of hell on a postnatal ward like I had with my first DS and am wanting to avoid this time round.

Pembury maternity unit has just been rated inadequate by cqc in case you were unaware

Hi, I'm really concerned about this @Hermie12 I live in between conquest and Pembury and had signed up at Pembury because planning an ELCS. I'm still only 14 weeks wondering if I should switch to Conquest for safety's sake.

When you say private rooms do you actually mean private (private healthcare) or do you mean amenity rooms where you can pay by the night to have a room to yourself?
My hospital stopped doing amenity rooms after covid but even prior to this there was no guarantee any would be available, or if someone with more need came in you'd be moved to a shared room and refunded. Just something to think about, don't make a decision based on something that may not be guaranteed.

Just to give some feedback on Pembury, I had my little girl there in November 2021 not an emergency section but nearly many times because of them private rooms!! They use the rooms so much to just put people in and basically forget them so although you might think it’s great to have privacy and own room after actually they forget about you and you press buzzers and it’s ages before anyone comes or anyone is around. Personally I had a really rough ride there and it’s basically in my early labor they put me in one of those rooms and left me too it when actually I was in back to back labor and none of them picked it up! Then after I was exhausted and no one would come for ages or my husband would go out and there would be no one there etc.

Moral is very low amongst the staff, not enough staff, e tc etc I would go elsewhere

Had DC2 at East Surrey last year, couldn't fault them. Maternity units all over the country are struggling and CQC scrutiny is intense after Lucy Letby. They do have some private rooms but if you've had a difficult birth or c section or any other issues that makes you high risk, they'll want you on the postnatal ward where they can see you. I suggest booking in for a tour. If you have a low risk pregnancy then the midwife led birthing unit is so lovely

I just had a baby at tunbridge wells and it was ok- the private rooms I was excited about but I felt it also meant the staff would just leave you and not do regular checks. I’d have preferred that but I know some women wouldn’t. My main midwife was lovely but once baby was out we weren’t checked on until we were discharged about 10 hours later