Whipps Cross or Homerton

[bluprince13]

Hi! We are trying to choose b/w Homerton and Whipps Cross. Homerton has better CQC rating and we can get to it via tube (1 change) from Ilford vs. Whipps Cross which is a bus ride. Homerton is also closer via car. Do you have any recent experience of using either?

A second question - what midwife are we likely to be referred to? Is that the same as the hospital or a separate one? Should we find a good midwife too or does that not matter as much as choosing a good hospital?

My local is Newham general but I gave birth there once and never would again. I had my daughter in Homerton in April. I used the birthing centre there and it was a million times better experience than with my son at Newham. I couldn't recommend them enough. Staff were absolutely amazing, I felt so safe and looked after. Nothing was rushed and I felt so in control x

I had no 1 at Homerton in 2023, to be honest it wasn't the greatest experience. The antenatal clinic was completely overwhelmed, some of the midwives were lovely but I had a really bad experience with one of them. Appointments were hard to reschedule and it seemed like the desk staff didn't really care about trying make it happen, they basically wanted me to miss one of my scheduled appointments entirely, so I said, "Fine, as long as a named clinician agrees in writing that is safe," and then somehow they found me an appointment the following week. 🤷‍♀️

The birth itself was fine, again some of the midwives were great but some I think inexperienced and under-supervised, including one incident that in my birth reflections appointment after the obstetrician said was a lapse in the standard of care and unsafe. Postnatal ward was grim and the midwives were nice but missed that my LO was struggling to feed, kept telling me everything was fine, but then LO lost 11% of bodyweight and was in intervention a few days later.

Had a birth reflections appointment almost a year after the birth in April due to cancellations, and am still waiting for the letter through and a referral to the anaesthetic clinic as I had trouble with pain relief.

All that said, I'm currently tossing up between Homerton and Whipps myself because although my experience at Homerton wasn't great, Whipps has quite a bad reputation, has a severe midwife shortage and I've had bad experiences there as well. 🤷‍♀️ Homerton is at least an overall better hospital (Outstanding vs Requires Improvement, though both maternity services are Good). Sadly NHS maternity services are in a bit of a state everywhere. I think I'll go with Homerton again for no 2 and just be a really pushy parent about everything since I have hard won experience with getting my point across there.

I will say the pelvic health physio team at Homerton are incredibly lovely and really responsive.

I had a good experience at Whipps Cross EPU, they were very quick and all very lovely and caring. We have chosen Homerton though even though WC is slightly closer due to the CQC reports and generally feedback seems to be better at Homerton. I’ve only had my booking appt and 12 week appointment though so far, the midwife and staff we’ve seen have been great but there has been some admin issues, although I suspect that will happen everywhere.

I had an amazingly good experience at Homerton, would absolutely recommend

I gave birth at Whipps Cross and had all my scans there - no complaints at all, they were all wonderful there, particularly the midwife who delivered my son

Homerton every time, had my first there and currently 13 weeks pregnant with my second. They have been fantastic this time around and putting things in place already so I can have a VBAC, really listening to what I want.

A good family friend is a neonatal consultant and worked across most trusts including Homerton and Whipps and strongly advised us against Whipps. He highly rated the care, knowledge and his experience at Homerton and if anything had gone wrong, they were much better equipped to handle it.

I know a handful of people who gave birth at Whipps and all of them had terrible experiences and all have had traumatic births.

We also live between whipps and Homerton and went for Homerton twice because it has a very good NICU (Whipps does not) so wanted to be there in case we needed it (fortunately did not). I had my kids in 2018 and 2020 so not super recent but I’m pregnant again and will be going back there.

Midwife care was hit and miss as it is everywhere in London - rarely saw the same midwife twice. But I had 2 absolutely fantastic water births in the birth centre. With dc1 I got to stay overnight in the room I gave birth in so also avoided the post natal ward - was an absolute dream.

Post natal care was delivered through Newham and was shocking - not much you can do about that though.

I gave birth at Whipps Cross about 6 years ago. I ended up having quite a complex birth & my DD ended up spending a few weeks on the special care baby unit. Is that different from a NICU @harrietm87? My DD was in an incubator as she needed assistance breathing. Thankfully she made a full recovery & I can’t fault the care from the midwives through to the nurses on the SCBU. What I would say is that when I went for scans Whipps was very overcrowded with some people sitting on the floor & it could be a long wait for bloods. But my midwife appointments were all fine, I had the same midwife for most appointments & she was very reliable.

@Soundsofjoy they are different - SCBU is for less serious care needs. NICU is neonatal intensive care. My understanding is that Homerton has one of the top-rated NICUs in London, or it did at the time I was looking.

Ah I see, that makes sense. Actually I seem to remember talk of my DD going to Royal London when they thought she may need more intensive support but luckily she was ok to stay at Whipps. That’s good to know about Homerton, it does have a very good reputation.