Knutsford Suite at Watford closing down?

[Couldashouldawoulda]

I'm due to give birth in June, and have just been contacted by my consultant's secretary to say that the Knutsford Suite (private bit) at Watford General Hospital is suddenly closing down, and they won't be able to deliver my baby there after all! They can do it in London for about another £2.5k. Ouch. Has anyone else had this? Any idea why, or what's happened? All quite worrying at this late stage...

Bump?

I had my first at Watford. Fwiw it was actually fine. I had to go into trans care after and the staff were amazing.

I'm getting lots of links coming up on my newsfeed about this situation. Apparently there are 27 women due to give birth after 1st May who will be affected by this.

They are saying you can either stay at Watford and be under the NHS or go to a different hospital.

You may even still get the same doctor who you was going to pay for.

Hopefully someone who can be a bit more helpful will be along soon. I wish you the best of luck and hope you get sorted. It must be very stressful worrying about it at a late stage in pregnancy.

Yes, thanks Judey. I've now spoken to Watford, and apparently they aren't closing it down, but they're suddenly no longer providing private obstetric care there after 1st May, so you can still have an NHS birth but with private aftercare. That doesn't work for me though, as my reason for going private is to be able to choose who will do my ELCS, and on the NHS there wouldn't be any certainty. If there are only 27 people affected, you'd think they could have just gone ahead and dealt with those already booked in before making the change...

Pity I think all the wards in that hospital should be for NHS patients, I had to wait half a day to be transferred to a side room after my son was born and we were both wasn't well with an infection, the hospital needs more beds, staff and facilities refurbished and I don't see the money is going back into improving the hospital and it's standard care for everyone