New to London : Best NHS hospital in London

[Happyscotinlondon]

I am relatively new to London and I am very unsure of London hospital ratings and generally who has a good reputation for caring for / delivering babies :) If anyone can advise the hospital to be avoided at all costs and the ones that are considered the best I would be so grateful.

For info this is my first and I am 40 so generally considered higher risk, although not sure that being 40 actually makes me that x

Thank you all for your help booked now at St Thomas's and they are allowing patients from outside the catchment area just now so I was in luck

I had first at St.Thomas`,2nd at UCH and am now booked into Kings for no 3(due to various moves).

I can honestly say antenatal care is pretty standard,and good across all 3-but postnatal care in STH and UCH was poor-and I gather that this is pretty much replicated everywhere(deliveries all in the last 4 years)

I didn`t mind however-I just wanted to get home with my healthy babies !

I had one at Tommy's three years ago and one at Lewisham this year. Both had better and worse bits, but overall both were fine and left me feeling positive on balance. Induced at both - early stages of induction better at Tommy's. Actual birth good at both. Postnatal way better at Lewisham. It does depend very much who you get at each stage, i think...

Re the earlier comment about not knowing why locals campaigned to save Lewisham - even if significant improvements needed to be made, surely it is better to make them rather than close a chunk of the already overstretched maternity services in the area? In addition, worth noting that the proposal was to retain the birth centre but close the doctor-led maternity services - nonsensical and dangerous given the need to transfer between the two when initially low-risk births require intervention.

Tammy, agree. I had DD in Lewisham in December. I was moved from the birth centre (FAB) to the labour ward (not good, terrible agency midwife, issues around consent and not following guidelines). Luckily was mercifully short as it was only 1hr 40 from admission to delivery. If I had had to transfer hospitals DD would have been born on the way. And where would Kings or The Royal magically have got the extra capacity to deal with us? The case is for improvement, not scrapping, of services.

My experience of post natal-5 days worth- was also poor. They were terribly understaffed- on one shift no midwives turned up at all- and the Paeds neglected to do a care plan for us. Breastfeeding support was woeful, apart from a couple of the support workers who were brilliant (we were kept in as DD was tiny and failing to feed).

However- they have a brand new consultant midwife who is focused on service improvement, who I have been to see for a birth debrief and she has been great about following up complaints. Hopefully now the future looks a bit more secure they can crack on with service improvement. I met women in there who were perfectly happy with their experience, too, so I don't think it is massively helpful to only go on the basis of individual accounts.