Can you choose ANY NHS hospital?

[strange12]

Can somebody please confirm if you are you allowed to choose any NHS hospital to give birth in, when I went to my GP I was only given the option of a few local hospitals.

I've chosen one outside of the two I was 'offered', so it is possible. However, it's causing lots of problems with communication, procedures etc so in hindsight I may well have been better agreeing to one of the usual ones for our area. The one I'm booked in at is the same distance as the others, although much better transport links.

Thank you, wish I knew from the beginning, does anybody know where i can get statistics for maternity departments not just the hospital and mortality rates for the department. Can't find anything on nhs choices site or dr foster.

www.birthchoiceuk.com/

My understanding is that no hospital can turn you away if you arrive there in labour. I think the policy is designed for people who are away from home for whatever reason when they go into labour but there's nothing to stop you from having your ante-natal appointments etc at your closest hospital but actually going to a different hospital when you go into labour - although if the other hospital takes different information from you during your pregnancy, it might cause a couple of complications. I think I have read on this board before about people having to have bloods done again & things.
For me, the two local hospitals are each 45 mins away but one of them has a "remote" ante-natal clinic which is only 10 mins away so I am booked to go to the hospital with the remote ante-natal clinic. I fully intend to go to that hospital UNLESS the local football or rugby team are having a home game which is either starting in the next couple of hours or has recently finished as the traffic will be terrible and it will add an hour or so to my journey so I will go to the other hospital. This was suggested to me by the MW!

Thank you I did check birthchoice but all i can find is the % of normal, Caesarean , induction etc. No mortality statistics to see if one department has a significantly higher rate then another. Sorry to be morbid but just paniced.

There is all sorts of raw data available on maternity care on data.gov.uk, but I can't see anything on maternal mortality, and I suspect you won't find anything due to it not being possible to release data which refers to so few individuals (35 in 2010) without risking exposing personal data. Does this figure make you any less worried?

This also causes problems with analysing the data, if the numbers involved are small then its hard to see what is a systematic problem rather than a statistical "blip". If you don't have any training in statistics, I recommend staying away from the raw data, unless you want to end up basing your decision on misleading information.

As for "choice" in the NHS, Choose and Book limits the hospitals you can choose from generally, there is no right to choose any UK hospital, just to be given a choice between a few of the local hospitals which offer the treatment you require. So you should have only been offered a few.

I have used a hospital I wasn't registered at when worried about complications though: as I was away from home I just walked up to the local A&E and got them to refer me to the maternity unit (don't know if I should have done it that way, but I was worried and unable to contact my midwife). So no, an NHS hospital won't turn you away if you are in medical need and there. But that doesn't mean they will have your records, be where you have your antenatal scans or be where your midwife sends you for any complications.