NHS birth classes RANT

[katiegolightly]

OMG - where to start. This is beyond hilarious now. Does anyone else have a poor experience of using the Juniper Team of midwives in Hammersmith and Fulham? I'm actually ready to eat my own arms off.

I planned to do NCT classes so made the silly mistake of telling this to the the midwife on my first appointment. So now I appear to be off their radar for the NHS birth prep classes. Which I've since been advised by a few friends are worth doing too, as there's no such thing as too much info if you can make the time to go to them all. So I'd like to slot these in asap.

I'm now almost 32 weeks and have been phoning the midwife's number for 3 weeks, practically every other day. NOBODY EVER PICKS UP THE PHONE OR RETURNS CALLS. There is an answering service: "Leave a message, or page us in an emergency and we'll call you back within 24 hours." How many messages must I leave? So in frustration I paged. The guy answering the paging service wouldn't take my message and instead advised me to call the labour ward. Now, I didn't really want to do this - it wasn't an emergency and I didn't want to hold up the line for labouring women! But short of options, I called the labour ward. "er, um, er, try calling [the number I'd previously left a zillion messages on]." "No good" "Er, ok, try this one." I tried that one. Another person answered. "Oh, I can't help you but I'll get someone to call you back."

So someone eventually called me back. But she said "mmm, they're on Wednesdays" "ok, where, how many do I go to, what time, what dates etc etc?" "[flumoxed] Don't know, I'll send you something in the post". Nothing arrives... I keep calling, I keep being given new phone numbers, nobody picks up, the saga continues...

I'll not go on any more, but let me tell you I have tried no less than 6 phone numbers to organise something which should be VERY SIMPLE, surely? To my amazement, the lady on the phone this morning actually said "I have no idea what NHS birth preparation classes are." It's on the H&F NHS website for crying out loud!!!

Seriously, I have no idea what my next angle of attack is, this is utterly useless. I have no idea who I'm supposed to call when the time comes given how many times I've heard "don't just turn up, ring first" - well that's going to put a first time mum without a clue what's going on at ease the moment it all starts happening!

Does anyone know anything about the birth classes that apparently happen on Shottendane Rd on Wednesdays??

Anyone with experience of H&F / Juniper Team - must I phone the labour ward at C&W where I'm booked in when the moment comes?

DESPAIRING.

Sorry I can't be any help but I wanted to sympathise. Didn't happen to me on the antenatal classes but I've had similar experiences at a couple of hospitals in London (trying to get a referral letter out of Homerton hospital makes Kafka look like some kind of wild optimist). And actually the best thing about the NHS classes (in my slightly jaundiced view) is that they take you on a tour so you know physically where the delivery ward is and you get to meet some of the people, so you know whose door to bang on when you do need help.

Have you got a MW appt coming up? You could ask then? You're harder to ignore in person.

Thanks for the sympathies :-) Next midwife appt not for a few weeks unfortunately (by which time I'll be 35 weeks). My GP this morning helpfully asked if I had left my phone number when I left them a message...

And surprise surprise, the returned phone-call I was promised before the end of today never happened...again!

At least I managed to gatecrash C&W for a tour so know where to go - but it would be nice to get a few tips on how to push this baby out...! I just don't understand how anything can be so disorganised

You wonder how they manage to deliver any actual babies, really. (Actually this used to scare the crap out of me before I realised that it's just a matter if getting past the useless receptionists to someone with some medical training).

Does your hospital have a PALS (patient advice and liaison service)? I got them to intervene at Homerton and it sped up the referral letter some.

Do you have a surestart centre locally? All antenatal classes in my area are held at surestart centres, you can just ring them and book on direct, the midwives will tell you this but they don't do it for you.

Phew - got there in the end. But did have to just turn up at the venue hoping that was right and luckily it was. I just made sure I asked them SEVERAL TIMES who I'm supposed to call when the moment comes. Thanks for the tips girls!