Choosing antenatal care in this situation

[SRK16]

Due to a pre-existing medical issue my insurance will cover a c-section for me, so having looked at London options I thought I might book into the private bit of uclh for this.
Would it make it more sense to have my antenatal/midwife appointments at uclh if the delivery will happen there? Or does it make no difference?
Uclh is about 60 min away whereas my ‘local’ option is 35 min away. Local makes more sense in terms of time/faff of getting to appointments.. but wasn’t sure if uclh would mean more joined up care?

Would really appreciate any thoughts! Thanks

Antenatal/midwife appointments very rarely happen at the hospital you have your baby at. Mine are round the corner from my house, and I will be giving birth in a hospital 40 minutes away.

I'd personally opt for the nearer one, UNLESS it means that the midwife you see at uclh for antenatal appointments will defo be at your birth because it's all private (if that makes any sense - total baby brain over here)

I'm in a similar position to you. I've decided to go for the first appointments at the nearer one and will start going to the private one in the last trimestre. It's my first pregnancy so I'm just basing that decision on convenience rather than any real knowledge!

Thanks guys this is very helpful. I had no idea midwife appointments were unlikely to be at the hospital! I’ll go for the local option :)

Honestly, I'm not sure there's any point in going private if it's going to be more hassle for you. My NHS midwife appointments are less than 5 mins walk from my house, I have the same midwife throughout, and had my date booked for my section (with the consultant I want) at 12 weeks.

Some areas of medicine you get more with private, but I'm not sure there's much point with maternity, especially with a planned section. Private in postnatal if you can though obviously. Saying that, my hospital had fab food, answered buzzers immediately, and was so quiet when I had my baby out was pretty much 1:1 staffing. I probably just got lucky though.