Antenatal care in two different cities

[thepartysover]

Hi there,

I suspect this will be a daft question, but is it possible to receive antenatal care in two different cities? I currently split my time between Glasgow and London. I’m aware that I can’t be registered at two different GPs but being able to keep appointments in both places would be an enormous help.

Any advice very gratefully received!

No, your care will have to be through one hospital. I was in a similar situation, splitting time between London and the West Midlands and was told I'd need to come back to London for all appointments, even though it was 4-5 hours travel time each way. Couldn't even use different hospitals within London which would have reduced the travel time significantly.

If you have an emergency and need to be seen by the MFAU, EPU or A&E you can get seen anywhere, but for routine antenatal it will need to be one hospital.

I thought as much! Annoying, given that medical records are stored online now... oh well. Thanks for the reply x

Ah yes, i wondered about this too as i travel between London and Bristol. my wondering was more about the birth though, .. having my check ups in London where i live but birthing in Bristol where the family are .. is this possible? .. i imagine if i make sure i am in Bristol for when i go in to labor then you can just visit the nearest hospital and thats that, I guess I just wouldnt be able to follow my birthing plan? for example wanting a water birth, would that be completly ignored seen as its not where my notes are being held or would they allow me to use the pool if it happened to be free even though its not my local?

They aren't all stored online it turns out. I moved counties during pregnancy but the hospital I was booked at didn't change but it was still a faff and I had to have another booking in appointment half way in even though we'd been through all that already!

My antenatal notes are all paper and I have to take them in to every appointment and then when I give birth.
I have mixed care where the gp does the minor antenatal checks so this could be done by any gp I'm registered with. The 'bigger' checks are all with the midwifes associated with the hospital I'm giving birth in.
I guess you can transfer to another hospital late in pg (eg the pp that is going to move back to Bristol for the birth) but not swap back and forth throughout. Obviously if you go into labour in an unexpected location, you would go to your nearest hospital /mw unit with whatever notes you have.

@Zebrasinpjamas thank you, yea thats what i was thinking, do all the check up and scans here and then just make sure im in bristol near the time for birth and make sure i have some sort of printed version of my birthing wishes. hopefully its that simple, regarding the timing, .. knowing my luck ill get caught out and have to be here in london, which is not a problem it would just be nice to do it closer to family as most of them cant travel to london.

@eatthepineapple you would think these days with how social media works and phone technology that everything else would be just as up to date, birthing notes seems quite simple in comparison to something like twitter, when you think of all that information being shared and stored every second, hospital data seems more important and easier to transfer. its a funny old world.

I have a friend who managed to get split routine care. She worked in the Shetlands on a rota system - so was there for 3 weeks then back at home in Aberdeen for 3 ish weeks. I think it took phone calls from the Aberdeen midwife to set it up but I'm not sure. She couldn't travel back because of her work rota - I suspect they wouldn't have done it otherwise.

I know I always think the same thing when it comes to stuff like that. I have asked these questions before and apparently it’s just too complicated!