Private room after birth at queen charlottes

[Tanyatubby]

Hi ladies,I am due to give birth in 8weeks.I am considering a private room after delivery and was wandering if anybody else has done this? If so how much did it cost,in your opinion was it worth it and how do I go about booking as I rarely see the midwife and don't want to leave it too late

Many thanks.

Not the same hospital, but after my Ds was born, I had a 'private' room which would usually have had to be paid for, but I was quite unwell and was about to walk out so they put me in a side/private room. It was nice, but I wouldn't have paid for it.

Hi there,

You have a couple of options.

One is that you ask for an amenity room following the birth. This is a single room with bathroom off the Postnatal Ward which costs around £250 a night. You will receive standard NHS midwife care and food, etc. i.e. no different to on the postnatal ward. You will however have privacy and your own bathroom. You cannot pre-book these rooms. They are also in high demand as they are offered free as a priority to higher need mothers such as multiple mothers (lots of twins and triplets born at Queen Charlotte's as it specialises in multiple births), traumatic deliveries/caeseareans, etc. They will prioritise these 'higher-need' patients over those willing to pay.

Your other option is to move to the private (Sir Stanley Clayton) ward post-delivery. This obviously costs more per night (not sure how much but you could call to check - five years ago it was around £600 I think) as you have private care i.e. more midwives per patient, a night nursery should you need it. The rooms are also better with fridges, televisions, good-sized en suite bathrooms, etc. You also get separately catered food and can chose from a wider menu. However, again there are no guarantees. You can call beforehand and put your 'name down' I think but if they are full on the day with fully private patients (i.e. those who have opted to have full private maternity care rather than just on the postnatal side) then you won't get a room. I think there are 8 or 10 rooms from memory so you may well get lucky - certainly you've got a better chance of guaranteeing a room than on the NHS postnatal ward.

Hope this helps.

Do you have private medical cover? Would that not cover for it? Sorry no knowledge, just trying to be helpful! Don't even have private medical cover!

Thanks to everyone for the replies! I had no idea it would be so expensive..I don't have medical insurance so would be quite a stretch to pay out so much..it was just an idea as a friend of mine did the very same thing in southend last year and paid eighty pounds..city living eh?
Also mine was a twin pregnancy originally up until three months and sadly only one survived which is why I chose the hospital early on..

Many thanks xx

Tanya- I had my DD at QC nearly 5 years ago. I don't know what kind of delivery you are planning but I ended up with an emcs and they wanted me in a shared room for the first night at least. In the end I had to stay quite a long time and it was only after I had a major strop on about day 4 that I was given an amenity room. It was better than the ward in that the bathroom was cleaner, and it was a bit quieter. For the first couple of days I had quite enjoyed sharing (when I wasn't feeling too out of it) as one of the other mothers in my room was really nice.

If you end up with a straightforward delivery I'd expect you wouldn't be there long anyway. And the rooms themselves are in 4-bedded bays, so none of this 20-to-a-room business that you get in some other hospitals. It's really not all that bad.

HTH, and that your birth goes well.

I had DD at the birth centre at Queen Charlottes and I was in a room afterwards, not paid for, but ensuite and with a pull-out bed for DH. As I remember it, paying for a room then includes a tv and a fridge too. One of my friends did this after a fairly difficult and long induction ending in lots of intervention. I think it made a difference to how she perceived the hospital and helped her have a slightly better experience than she would have done otherwise.

If you use the birth centre and have a straight-forward birth (a big if as these things can't necessarily be planned), you would have your own room afterwards. For free!

I had a private room, also different hospital. Labour was 44 hours followed by surgery and post-op recovery, so by the time they were ready to transfer me to post-natal ward, DH was adamant that I would have my own room with no other human beings disturbing my sleep even if we had to remortgage the house!

It was totally worth it, I'd been through such a traumatic time and all I wanted was some alone time with my DS without having to make small talk about birth/BF/overnight bags.