I had my first at Kingston (5 years ago) and my second at West Mid (3 years ago). Currently pregnant with 3rd and registered with West mid again. No hesitation in my decision.
My labour experience at Kingston was completely awful, unfortunately. We were made to feel we were an inconvenience, as they were unexpectedly busy that evening. I first went in after my waters broke, at their request, and was sent home even though I was already in active labour (they never actually checked if I was dilating). This was pretty traumatic as we don’t drive and had to get a cab, and less than an hour later we were on our way back to the hospital anyway. There was no sympathy that their midwife led unit was full and I couldn’t have the birth I’d wanted. Our midwife was completely disengaged, didn’t even tell us her name. I was kept strapped to a bed on continuous monitoring, which we were never given an explanation for (baby wasn’t in distress, as far as I know). Being unable to move around/change position meant I was in agony and also stopped my baby from fully engaging (I found this out later from a labour debrief with an excellent midwife at West Mid). So my dilation stalled at 8cm, despite having continuous strong contractions every other minute. After several hours of this, the doctors decided to put me on the hormone drip to get things moving, but I couldn’t take it anymore and requested an epidural first. There was only 1 anaesthesiologist working that night, who had 2 emergency c-sections back to back. So it was over 3 hours before he could put in my epidural. It was morning by this point and thankfully the midwives shifts changed as I was ready to push. The 2 midwives that took over were excellent and realised the baby wasn’t in the correct position. Over an hour of pushing and I’d only managed to turn him into the correct position, and was tiring rapidly. They tried the ventouse but it wouldn’t seal over his head, so I ended up having to have an episiotomy and forceps delivery. Our son was born not breathing and was unresponsive for about 5 minutes, the longest of my life. Thankfully he perked up and didn’t need to be intubated. I had a PPH that almost required a blood transfusion, had countless stitches and I lost sensation in my bladder for 2 days, so had to stay in hospital. Our aftercare at Kingston was fairly good, but the whole experience was traumatic.
With our daughter at West Middlesex the experience was so completely different! I was treated by the brilliant perinatal mental health team there throughout the pregnancy, who helped me to understand and come to terms with what had gone so wrong with my son’s birth. The mental health midwife wrote a comprehensive birth plan, which everyone followed to the letter. When I went into labour and arrived at West Mid 3cm dilated, I was allowed to labour in a side room for a few hours until I reached 5cm. We were then taken to a lovely room in the MLU by the most caring, experienced midwife and her student. They gave me aromatherapy oils to relax me and I moved around as much as I wanted. My daughter was born in the birthing pool a couple of hours later, with no intervention needed. It was such a calm and peaceful birth. I did need some stitches afterwards, as she came out with her hand up by her face, but this was handled quickly by the consultant. The mental health midwife checked in with me several times throughout my time in the hospital and even got us a private room overnight. The care we received throughout was exceptional.
I’m not at all worried about giving birth there again soon. Obviously everyone’s experiences are different, but I hope that my comparison can be of some help to you. Best of luck with your decision and pregnancy x