NHS v private

[EllaSW]

If you decide mid-third trimester to go private for the delivery:

1. when and what do you tell your NHS hospital?
2. how is any follow-up (e.g. midwife checks) handled?

I’ve looked into this at Kings. You’re in the NHS hospital, next to all their usual facilities should you need extra care, NICU etc. All your details of scans and your medical history get transferred (and of course are in your handheld notes).

We looked into it, in particular the details of whether info was shared and what happened in the case of complications, which was important as I wasn’t a straightforward case.

I was very tempted but DD arrived before we made a decision.

But ignore posters telling you that you will need to be blue lighted or info can’t be transferred. That might be the case for some private units, but it’s certainly not universal.

@Antonianathank you, that’s very helpful. King’s is somewhere we’re considering. Appreciate that you didn’t end up going there but did you have a positive view of the private facility there when you considered it?

When you're speaking to them just make sure you get them to step through exactly what they'd do in an emergency. I had a massive bleed with one of my kids and would have died if I'd have been in a private hospital.

Had D&C at The Portland after a miscarriage and also had a massive bleed and not only did I very nearly die because they don't keep enough blood on site, I had to go into intensive care (they have one intensive care bed - I'd have had to be blue lighted to an NHS hospital if that hadn't been available) and got an absolutely humongous bill for the privilege.

I never actually looked round the facilities, but the conversations I had with them were really positive. I know people who have gone private at King’s and loved it.

FWIW, I’ve had two elective NHS sections at King’s and both were amazing. Calm, lovely staff and I felt really staff.

After care was shitty though.

I won’t do it again, but if I did I might do NHS CS and throw money at whatever comes next.

She must have been because she talked about going in an ambulance. I can’t remember the name of the hospital I’m afraid, although it was in London.