Gatecrashing Portland Hospital

[2ducks2ducklings]

My parents are taking our eldest two children to New York for a few days during October half term. While they're away, my husband and I thought we'd book a last time child free night away to London. We've booked tickets to a show and plan on having a nice meal etc. This is planned for the 28th October. My due date is the 5th November so I'm very aware how close we could potentially be cutting this, however my youngest was 12 days late so maybe this will happen again.
But my question is this, (and obviously this is a lighthearted question, unless anyone thinks it may work ) if I happened to go into labour in the vicinity of the very posh and very expensive private Portland Hospital, do they have some sort of duty of care to take in the poor, primark attired waif and allow her to give birth in a hospital probably grander than the hotel she had booked to stay in?

I often wondered that!
I work across the road from the Portland and my bosses used to say should my water break, I should go into there!
I guess if I turned up there, they would have redirected me to the university college hospital which is a 2 minutes walk from there!

Lol.
I guess it depends on whether they have an emergency section/admission of some sort?

999 would probably bring you to the waifs and strays hospital though.

Ha! I asked this very question and you'd be redirected to UCH!

UCH is more or less around the corner so I think they'd send you there. Worth a try tho!

I think they operate a "if your name's not down, you're not coming in" door policy.

Even if they admitted you as an emergency, you'd still be charged full fees, which as far as I remember is about 6k for a midwife led delivery, 1.2k per night for a standard room, plus drugs.

Before they admit you, you're asked for a swipe of your CC. And the very LAST thing you want is a bill from them. Everything is chargeable. I had all mine there, and it's nice but we were on insurance. To self pay is crazy money.

Oh well, never mind, I best keep my legs crossed until we get home then

I had dc2 at the Portland. You're spitting distance from ucl as pp mentioned. It's nice there but it's just a hospital. I had a basic room which is pretty similar to a private room in any hospital except there were posh soaps in the bathroom. The food was nice though!

They'll look after you to the same extent as, say, Harrods would. So you can expect to be reasonable comfortable whilst they call a taxi (early labour) or ambulance (if they think you are close to delivery and need medical attendants with you) and you are taken to the nearest NHS hospital with maternity facilities. UCH, probably.

You could go in as an emergency, but would be billed.
My experience of private hospitals is that they scrimp at every turn. As a patient I would feel safer in uch.

What do you think they'd do?

If your CCard didn't get you entry there would be no room at the inn. Even if it was the second coming.

They are in the business of delivering babies.
Business being the operative word.