Please help - hospitals in central (NW) London - which are good?

[PinkMartini]

Hi there

Sorry if this has been asked a million times before but it was hard to search for.

I am only getting my head around being PG and have first GP appt tomorrow. Someone helpfully told me to have an idea which hospital I'd want to be referred to.

How does this work? Can I just pick one?!
I don't know what our health cover includes (need to look that up too) but I doubt it's a suite at the portland!!

I'm not too far from Mary's but have seen something here along the lines of Avoid like the plague.

Johns and Lizzies and Royal Free not too far and I know UCH is good too - though it seems a good half an hour away in the car. That's quite a long way surely?!

Sooooo confused.

Please can someone help?
TIA

You can choose which hospital you want to go do and the GP will refer you. Whereabouts are you?

Thanks Beansprout - nr Little Venice/Maida Vale so not far from any of the ones below.

This is a recent thread which might be useful.

wouldn't have been too hard to find that myself. thanks a lot norksdrift.

Hi,

I haven't been to Royal Free but I've heard it's quite good. I just wanted to let you know that i've just moved from Royal London (Whitechapel) to UCH and it's a billion times better. I'm so happy I moved. I'd heard bad things about pretty much all of the London hospitals and I think that it's true that none of them are perfect but some are definitely better than others.
I'd recommend UCH.

You can definitely choose where you want to go (although I think hospitals have got the right to turn down women from outside their catchment area if they don't have any room) and it's worth going to have a look at them first so you can make an informed decision. I wish I'd been to see Royal London before I went there. I'm now 29 weeks and I've only just changed and the past 6 months have been pretty miserable at the RL.

Good luck.

PS. You can visit UCH labour ward and birthing centre on Sundays. Can't remember what time. I can check for you though.

Tour is at 3pm Sunday but you ahve to call midday to make sure they are doing a tour that day

I've heard good things about UCH too (people actually go back there!). Queen Charlottes is the other really popular one in these parts.

I would recommend Queen Charlotte's (in White City) not far from the Harrow Road. St Mary's is pretty good but has quite an old, Victorian feel which can be off-putting especially if you're not a fan of hospitals. I recommend Q Charlotte's if you're north-westish. X

Can't recommend UCH. I had very offhand care there. Maternity services still waiting to go over to the new building so currently stuck in ancient Edwardian heap.

My sis went to Charlotte's and had a good experience.

AVOID ST. MARY'S LIKE THE PLAGUE. I had an awful awful awful experience there and have never met anyone who has had a good experience there. I had a fairly nice time at Queen Charlottes. Definitely try to get yourself onto the natural birth floor there. Staff are truly lovely and much better than on regular floor. AND reality is that there are such shortages of staff that even if you wanted pain medication they probably wouldn't get it to you in time on the the regular floor.

Another one here to say avoid UCH - I had really bad care there. Suffice it to say - my GP had to send in six letters before they actually managed to make me an initial appointment (and only then because somebody physically took it in and stuck it in front of them because they were so fed up of them losing it/never getting it).

Amongst other things, didn't bother to tell me that I was anaemic or had a UTI even when I rang up to check results.

Finally, last check up I had pre-eclampsia. Symptoms so obvious that even I could see that I had it from having read the basic stuff that you read when pregnant. Doctor didn't agree , wanted to give me a sweep to induce birth (at 39 weeks!) and told me to come back a week later as I didn't want one.

Ended up as an emergency admission to Tommy's (long story!) and pretty glad to be there instead of UCH. As I had never seen the same midwife twice it really wouldn't have made that much difference to continuity of care as I am sure I would have seen yet more different midwives.

Having had a look around UCH and then experienced Tommy's - one of the things that was a big positive there was that there was an en-suite loo in the birthing room. At UCH you had to walk down the corridor - can't get my head around how I would have been able to do that with everything else going on, and queue if someone else was in there, and it's a messy time (sorry if TMI!) - you really don't want to be sharing or worrying up about clearing up after yourself or worse - clearing up after somebody else before you can go. yuk.

pollydoodle, I had the exact same experience with my initial referal. Dr's letter went awol and after hundreds of phone calls I just turned up and hussled my way in.

Also ditto on the midwives. Never, ever saw the same one twice and usually just saw a healthcare assistant despite supposedly being "high risk".

Came into contact with chicken pox while I was pregnant and the hospital agreed to test my blood to find out if I was already immune. Called every day for two weeks before giving up. My daughter is now 10 months old. They also failed to diagnose my gestational diabetes...

Eventually went private at St Thomas's.

went private at St Mary's lindo wing. My Dr was the reason.Had a very good experience.
If I could not go private, I would also have run a million miles from St MMary's. The place is OOOOOOOOLD and does give you the creeps.
If you can go private and want a mother earth experience rather than medicalised environment, then St John and lizzie is the way to go.

Royal Free has a very good reputation for neo natal facilities and Queen Charlotte is a good mix of all.

It really depends on what you are looking for.

As for The Portland...well it's more a hotel than a hospital. There again, depends what you want.If it's a cesarian and tummy tuck , that's the place.

i had very good care at st mary's.