Hospital Choice

[fortheloveofcollies]

I have just got a BFP. Incredibly early days but exciting.

I have just looked up my local maternity ward and seen they are rated 'inadequate' with lovely, kind staff but major failings if things go wrong. This worries me.

I've found 2 lovely hospitals with birth centres attached rated 'good' and 'outstanding' which are 40-50 mins drive away. Is that too far?

They all have self referral. Can I self refer to any? Or do I need to refer to the close one then look at transferring? Can I tour them?

Any information you can give would be incredibly gratefully received as this is my first baby and I have no idea what I'm doing 😂

You can choose to give birth in any hospital that you choose. You can self-refer to the midwives at the hospital you want to choose :)

Congratulations!

I personally wouldn't want to be such a long drive from the hospital - one of the things I've been grateful for in pregnancy is only being 15 minutes' drive from the hospital so that appointments there don't take up half of my day with travel. But that's personal choice - lots of people do travel further for a preferred maternity unit.

Lots of hospitals offer tours of their maternity units - each hospital will do this differently, but mine offers tours at a fixed time every week, with limited places so you have to pre-book online. Ask the hospitals you're looking at what they offer, as some might offer virtual tours instead.

One thing to consider if you do refer to a hospital that's not close by is whether you're actually located in their catchment area (you may well not be if you are ~45 minutes away by car) and what community midwifery support you will have access to/how your antenatal appointments will work - the community midwives at my hospital work in teams based in different parts of the borough and run appointments out of GP practices, it might not be possible to access community-based antenatal appointments with your trust's midwives if you don't live locally.

Thank you.

I don't mind the travel for the appointments but am a bit concerned if there's an emergency or if I have a fast labour.

Stupid question but how do I contact hospitals for tours? I can only find numbers for urgent situations and then an online form for self referrals.

Congratulations!

I had a similar dilemma last year when i found out i was expecting DD2 - here's my thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/childbirth/4879344-st-georges-hospital-sw-london-cqc-inadequate-maternity

I ended up having a very speedy labour and if we'd have gone for the hospital 40mins away, DH would have missed the birth, so i was glad i put my trust in our hospital. But obviously not every hospital is the same and I'm sure for everyone who feels like i do, there are others who are glad to have gone to a hospital further away!

What i found helpful was asking the hospital directly about their rating and what they were doing to improve it. It was all taken very seriously and i felt reassured by their plan.

I googled hospital name + maternity and there were general contact details rather than just referral or emergencies. They might also be active on FB or Instagram and you can contact them that way.

@fortheloveofcollies My hospital has a general maternity helpline number and an appointments email address on its website - but unfortunately every hospital is different so there isn't much you can do apart from trawl through the maternity pages of their websites to find what you're looking for! If there's nothing on the maternity-specific pages you could also try sending an enquiry to the hospital's PALS team - every hospital has one and they should be able to direct a query to the right place.

@Sunnyshoeshine thank you. That's really helpful. I have previously heard good things about my local hospital so maybe the report is a little unfair. It's just worrying to see it have the lowest possible rating 😬

@CluelessInLondon thank you!

You really do need to look at the journey to the hospitals - and fall back routes if there are roadworks or other hold ups.

Because the absolute last thing you need when in labour is a shitty journey

If my hospital had been 40 minutes away I would have had my daughter at the side of the road. 15-20 minutes in the car was unbearable I had to stood up for contractions sitting down was awful my partner would have had to pull over I was close to asking as it was. She was born soon after arriving at hospital.

I am now 30 minutes in good traffic from the nearest hospital and have been given instructions to get an ambulance or midwives to come to me in the same situation as my labour was very short and surprised all the midwives that I was fully dilated.

Hi
my local maternity ward closed down, I was given a choice of which one I wanted to go to and opted for one about 35 minutes away. My appointments were mainly done by community midwives at my local GP surgery, however I had some complications that required additional scans (every 2 weeks at 28 weeks) but I really didn’t mind the drive. It gave me some thinking space in an otherwise very busy schedule x