Having baby at hospital outside your NHS "area" - possible?

[Hadeda]

I had my DD at St George's in London earlier this year. A friend of mine who lives 2 streets away from me is pregnant and wants to go there too. However, she's been told by the GP surgery that she can't go there as its outside our area. She has a choice between 2 other hospitals - at one the maternity unit is being closed down and the other isn't great, a few friends have had their babies there and no one has had a good experience. If she chooses the one being closed there is a chance she will be compulsorily transferred to the nasty one at some point during her pregnancy.

It seems odd I could go to St G. when, under the same circumstances, she is told no. Plus she really has no confidence in the two hospitals she is able to go to.

The GP surgery has to send in the booking form to the hosp and they are refusing to send it to St G. The booking secretary at the GP is scaring my friend - told her that due to her "leaving it so late" she would not get a 12 week scan - so my friend is thinking of just going with the unit that is closing and hoping it doesn't transfer her. (She is 11 weeks pg now, but has been passed around a number of early preg unit appointments since about 6 weeks, last Fri was the first time anyone spoke to her about actually booking in.)

Do you have any right to ask/request/demand that the GP applies to the hospital of your choice?
Or do you have any right choose the hospital you give birth in?

I'm sure I read something about this recently - but not sure if it was just a "we would like to" policy or an actual patient right.

Does anyone know? It's her first baby and I know she's feeling a bit scared by the whole hospital thing (she doesn't like hospitals anyway).

Is the nasty hospital St H in Carshalton?

A hospital may refuse to book you in, but they won't turn away someone in really strong labour. When my mother worked at Epsom they often had travellers turning up who had not registered with any hospital.

The comments her don't look that bad

www.nhs.uk/servicedirectories/pages/hospital.aspx?id=rvr05&v=3

By the way, if your friend is worried about the 12 week (nuchal?) scan, I highly highly highly (can't say it enough!) recommend a privat nuchal at Fetal Medicine Centre. She can there and get her scan whilst leaving her GP to believe she is not booked in anywhere. The GP has a responsibility to her care somewhere.

I've heard good things about St H for obs.

(plus I guess a lot of the Epsom staff will transfer there)

AtheneN what's your surprise about Kingston? I thought it was very popular, I could well believe they would turn away people out of area (although I accept that's not quite what was said ie full at 6 weeks)

Hooray! My friend rang St G and booked herself in. First appointment on Tues with the scan two days later. She's very relieved .

(The nasty hosp is St H. I know the big London hospitals are generally all ok, but a few of our friends have gone there and none has had an overall good experience. Perhaps that will change with Epsom closing, but my friend is pretty definite that she doesn't want to go there.)

Yes, dilemma, my prob is that they said theye were full when I was 6 weeks pregnant and they were clearly lying. At six weeks lots of people won't have even got a plus on a pee stick, let alone already seen the GP and been referred to midwives who would then process the booking at the hospital. They were obviously lying. IT worked for the best because I ended up at QC which I was very happy with.

I'm pleased she managed to sort it Hadeda. Actually I was booked in before I'd seen my GP, but that was because I was already under them and had a pre-pregnancy appointment the following week which they were able to convert to an antenatal. I got told off by the hospital MW for not having any green notes! She was very sarky with me when I said I only found out the week before and hadn't seen the MW because she's still on holiday.

Notcitrus - it makes me sad when I hear people say 'don't go to mayday'. I'm a user rep at the hospital and I meet dozens and dozens of mums who have given birth there. I agree the CLU and the postnatal care there leaves something to be desired (though tbh I'm not sure they are signally worse than at St Helier or St Georges - I've had plenty of negative feedback about the care at both those hospitals), but the MLU provides outstanding care. I have not met a single mum who's used the birth centre who's felt really unhappy about their care there. And I've met a good number of people who feel that their care in the MLU at Mayday would compare with anything they could get in the private sector!

I can't comment about London hospitals but that's how I feel about the hospital I'm under (like it's private) but I hear a lot of people say they wouldn't use it or to use some of the really inferior hospitals (I know them because my dad is a radiographer and used to work at them so I know a lot about the other hospitals and they nearly killed my nephew).

It seems to me that the people who have straight forward pregnancy, labour and delivery who are home same day can sometimes get overlooked. I've heard a lot of women say they went home without breastfeeding.

For me, being high risk, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Comparing notes with mothers from other units I have found that they had problems with breastfeeding, whereas every nurse and MW were willing to help us, were good at it and even singing from the same hymn sheet so there was never any confusion about what was happening.

I think the problem is not so much individual hospitals but the fact that they have closed so many units.

I am sure that St Helier would offer a higher standard of care if there weren't so many mothers. NHS care has turned into a sausage factory and with the best will in the world it can't offer personal care when a mother's bed is needed again in six hours time. The poor midwives are probably just struggling to keep the place vaguely hygenic and keeping up with the paper work for discharging.

Its the same where I live now and everyone says how bad Watford is and the alternative is going to Luton. They closed down units in St Albans, Hemel and Egdware.

Who wants to travel stupid distances when in labour.

Fabsmum - I only turned down Mayday because I didn't know where it was (and St Helier because I did know where it is and it's impossible to get to from home via public transport). But I did then look at the various stats available and it didn't rate as high as Georges/Kings/Tommies. Don't worry, I ignored all the online horror stories because all hospitals have them!

Glad Mayday is improving (and yes, postnatal care does seem to be the low spot in all London hospitals - presumably because the effects of understaffing are less obviously bad there than during labour and the crowds mean they want to get rid of people quickly?)

As others have said, who wants to travel stupid distances in labour (or make partners/family do it) - I may not know what labour actually is like yet but I'm pretty sure being belted in a car for an hour isn't part of my birth plan! Georges is only a 5 min drive for me.

Are you going to the birth centre notcitrus?

I've been told it's very good. Only problem is that it's being closed regularly because of staffing issues. In the first month after opening it was closed for 14 shifts because of short staffing on the CLU (they moved the midwives from the MLU across). BF support is good at St Georges. It's DIRE at Mayday.

Fabsmum - apparently it's been fully-staffed for the last 5-6 months (I asked if it was true it had been shut for staff shortages, and yes it was in its first few months), but now there's the opposite problem: it's simply full a lot of the time!

You can't choose to go there as such, either - you turn up at the del suite and get triaged, and if you still tick all the low risk boxes and there's space, you're offered the MLU. So on the plus side it's equally available to educated demanding women and women with less knowledge or confidence to ask for stuff, but does mean you can't guarantee getting in.

But if I can, yes I'll go there. But not getting hopes up given I'll be part of the 'got very relaxed before Christmas' rush...

Glad to hear bf support is good - I've seen that Georges has some bf award but not sure what that means other than midwives don't shove your baby in a nursery or give it formula. They did give me a big fridge magnet with all the bf helpline nos., which was nice.

I wanted to go to watford (live in barnet) but they only take 12 people a month from barnet.
I luckily then decided to got to UCH who take anyone as been recommnded UCH and Barnet were horrendous.

UCH amazing if anyone wants a hospital in London.

Hadeda St H features in the Standard tonight! Someone resigned (?an executive) because of the reorganisation, directives coming from on high, not allowed to know any of the financial details, obsessing over tiny details and no strategy and too many management consultants!!
Thought of you/your friend when I read it!
I think Kings (maybe Guys/Tommies too was being plagued by an excess of management consultants recently.

"not sure what that means other than midwives don't shove your baby in a nursery or give it formula"

They've got the Unicef 'Baby Friendly' award. This basically means that all the staff have done the same training so they should all be singing from the same songsheet when it comes to supporting you after the birth. You won't believe how important this is - it's a complete PITA when you get inconsistent and conflicting advice on breastfeeding. Happens all the time. Less likely to happen at St Georges. Hurray!