OMG look if you DARE - how does your maternity hospital rate?

[PaulaYatesBiggestFan]

mine is FAIR

Mine is in 'best', though my experience was awful. The breastfeeding advice was utterly rubbish.

But it is a fairly new maternity suite with private rooms for everyone so that must surely have contributed to 'best'.

Mine isn't on there. But I did have an excellent time and 'service' there. I cant rate it highly enough.

Least well where dd1 was born and I can't say I'm in the least bit surprised.

Least well where DS1 was born, which is quite understandable given the experience I had there.

DS2's unit isn't listed, but I couldn't have faulted it, except to say that I was on a whole ward on my own, was a bit lonely!

All of which goes to show that this survey is just a load af bull.

I work in a least well London hospital, which is actually quite a bit better than a lot of other London hospitals (or I wouldn't work here.)

It completely depends on the staff you meet in the hospital as to what kind of experience you will have, so I really would disregard these findings as a complete waste of time and money.

Mine is lest well also. I'd have to agree. My first was done privately, which was to the level of care I expected to be as standard for maternity care. This second pregnancy was NHS, which I though would be fine as we had moved close to a very well known NHS maternity hospital...big mistake. I had lots of private fill-ins to compensate for the poor standard (I haven't even given birth yet!). If I have a third, it will definitely be private again.

I'm booked into a least well one. I had ds there and was really impressed, but it does make me a bit anxious now. Could things have gone horribly wrong in the intervening 21 months?

The only feasible alternative is another least well one from a different trust, but my GP advised against that one.

morning glory, if you go private, do you have a private consultant at an NHS hospital, or do you go to a private hospital? I'm booked in for an elective at my hospital and dreading it after my last experience [emergency section] How do I find a good private hospital? And would I be able to get a room for dh [and maybe even ds] to stay with me?

mines better but i dont believe it lol

Mine was best.. and from my very recent experience would say they were fab, then I look at the hospital for my first and they got least well and again have to agree.

The two hospitals I gave birth in are both least well. I had two great births - lucky to get great midwives both times.
But neither had even half adequate post natal/bf care

best for mine, im having a home birth this time but did have a very good experiance there with dd2

I'm lucky enough to be having one of the top 5 ones which, being a 1st baby, I'm very relived at! But I also have one of the bottom 3 in the other direction

ruty: The option I took the first time around was to find a consultant in the private wing of a NHS hospital. I just feel more comfortable with all the emergency back-up.

Many NHS hospitals have private wings where you can stay post-natally even after giving birth on the NHS side, providing there is a room available. Your DH can stay with you in your room. Trouble is that most of the rooms are booked by patients that went completely private, but there is always a chance that one might be available.

Mine says least well but I had the most fantastic service throughout my pregnancy, labour and post and I am really sad it says this. I would go back to my hospital in a flash.

interesting. the one i chose is labelled better and the one i should have gone to but decided not is labeled best!!!

I think peopel who apy for private consultant care in NHS Trusts must be bonkers!!

Women pay at ther trust where i work. They must be well disapponted. They get a side room that others get for free. The consultant may deliver the baby but who would prefer a doctor to a midwife?? The consultant does creep round them something rotten though! These women still have to stand and queue for breakfast like all the other mothers.

The thing i really dont like though, is many think they are also getting a private midwife and are pressing their buzzer every five minutes. I dont think its made clear that the midwives arent private and being paid extra for one to one care like the consulatnts. I feel sorry for these women as they are really misled!

Absolutely agree Carmen!

We too have a lot of PPs in our unit and I always make sure they know that we are public midwives and they are only paying for the consultant, not us.

Also agree that they probably have a higher risk of epis, ventouse, having to wait in pain for anaesthetist to come in from home at night, while the public one is sitting drinking tea, etc...

I could go on and on about this but thats another thread....

better - apparently. But I was happy with it before TBH.

Mine was rated as "least well".
At the time I didn't have a clue about the standard of care I was getting, having never had a baby before plus being slightly distracted by the whole 'being in labour' business.

With hindsight pre and post delivery care was pants. They abandoned me for 2 hours on the labour ward having said they would be back soon to see how I was doing with the pain and then blamed "shift changeover" ( ie they went home and forgot to tell the next team that I needed checking).
Post-labour I had a stroppy MW handing ds to me and telling me my baby was crying and that I needed to look after it - when their colleague had crept alongside me bed a short while earlier and taken ds away, with gentle understanding smiles and told me I needed my rest and he would be back soon.
Plus, bf support was lacking - it was obviously something they wanted you to do, but there wasn't much actual help.

Glad its not just me, mintpurple!
And yes, a totally different thread altogether!

Mine is least well - Lewisham does anyone have any experiences of this hospital please?

Mine says 'Least Well', too (Kingston in London). I'm really surprised as the care I had was excellent and all the staff I met were completely lovely. Everywhere was clean and bright (if not v beautiful) and I was treated well thoughout labour and afterwards.

lucicle -- I was, and am about to be again, at Kingston too.

Kingston got 1s on

Indicator 9: Average time between first making contact and booking appointment [NICE guidelines are that booking appointments should happen prior to 12 weeks, preferably around 8 weeks, but Kingston tends not to do them until 12-13 weeks]

Indicator 16: Stakeholder involvement in service planning and evaluation [Kingston doesn't appear to have any trust representatives on a Maternity Services Liaison Committee, so automatically scores 1]

Indicator 20: Delivery of hospital based antenatal care [this is because the Early Pregnancy Unit and the Day Assessment Unit have very short opening hours in comparison to other hospitals, and the percentage of women who end up being admitted to the antenatal ward is correspondingly high (implication is that if they provided EPU and DAU services more effectively women could be seen there and not need to be admitted]

2s on

Indicator 1: Women not receiving NICE recommended number of antenatal appointments

Indicator 2: Availability of NICE recommended screening [Looking at the criteria in detail, I think this was because they didn't offer the combined NT/blood test, which they now do (they introduced it at some point between my 13-week scan and my 21-week scan, anyway)]

Indicator 3: Appropriate use of caesarean sections [seems to be because their VBAC rate and their rate of attempting to turn breech babies rather than go straight to c/s are fairly low. Their VBAC rate's been pretty good the last few months, though, I think, based on what my midwife's been saying]

Indicator 7: Extent that staff are trained in core maternity skills [midwife training is about average, but the obstetricians' recent training for the six months prior to the survey had been virtually non-existent]

Indicator 8: Teamworking and supervision [seems to be because there wasn't enough joint training (this may be improving, given that last time I saw my midwife she was due to be going on a training day with my consultant the next day), because there are too many midwives per supervisor of midwives, and because the percentage of midwives who reported working in a well-structured team environment was quite low]

Indicator 11: % Women offered an informed choice for screening tests [suspect this is related to Indicator 9: as your booking appointment tends to happen within a few days of your NT scan, there's little opportunity to take much time to discuss the implications and you have to rely on the leaflet they send you in the post]

Indicator 15: Quality of support in caring for the baby after discharge [based on women reporting support for crying, sleep positions, feeding, skin care and baby health and progress, which was fairly low]

Indicator 22: Appropriate involvement of obstetricians and midwives in antenatal care [seems to be because very few women manage to see midwives only and most need to see GP for some appointments]

3s (more or less average) on

Indicator 4: Maternal Morbidity

Indicator 5: Postnatal care of women and babies

Indicator 10: Choice and continuity for antenatal care

Indicator 13: Extent of choice in labour

Indicator 14: Support for infant feeding [this is a bit misleading: the number who tried to breastfeed was extremely high, but I suspect that may be down to the area. The percentage of women who reported good advice, help and support with breastfeeding was very low]

Indicator 17: Staffing levels

Indicator 18: Integration of support workers

Indicator 19: Average cost per delivery

Indicator 23: % women who considered their length of stay was about right

Indicator 25: Women?s view of cleanliness of delivery and postnatal areas

4s (above average) on

Indicator 6: Progress on implementing Mental Health NICE guidance

Indicator 12: % of women attending NHS antenatal classes who wanted to

Indicator 21: Data quality

Indicator 24: Homeliness of delivery rooms

Didn't get 5s (really good) on anything