Registering at hospital ‘outside of area’

[Anon35609]

I am pregnant with my 2nd and referred myself the same way I did with my first as we live at the same address. However I have found out today that since we have changed doctors the hospital I registered with is classed as out of area.
I have had my booking appointment with the hospital and they have said I also need to notify gp to see a community midwife as they use a different system.
Has anyone else experienced this? They explained that most of my appointments will now be with a community midwife but does this mean I have to have a second booking appointment? Just panicking since I don’t want to tell work yet but another absence from work isn’t going to look good and I haven’t been there long (I know you are entitled to antenatal appointments off but I wanted to keep this to ourselves until at least the first scan if possible).

No I don't think so. As far as I understand your booking appointment will have been with an experienced midwife who will have been checking thoroughly for any anomalies that are indications that you might need extra or specific care due to potential issues for you or baby e.g.

• more frequent scans
• a midwife specialising in babies or mothers with a certain condition
• links to other specialists in particular areas of maternal or pre/post natal health
• other specific tests or medications

Once this has been done, if nothing of note has been found, you will be passed to a regular midwife who will proceed with normal appointments using the info that nothing special has been found. I guess your first appointment with the community midwife might be a little longer just because she is getting to know you, but not another booking appointment.

Hi Op,
I have had a similar issue. We moved since baby no. 1 and kept the same GP practice. When registering pregnancy no. 2 I was surprised to find that our now ‘local’ community midwifery wouldn’t accept me because of my GP’s postcode (even though it’s still in the same county). The ‘local’ hospital to the GP initially didn’t want to take me either so I was really stuck! Luckily a nice admin lady took pity on me booked me in to the hospital and midwifery team I’d had child 1 at.l because I was about to go past 10 weeks and hadn’t been seen by anyone! Honestly, it’s all been absolutely fine so far! Currently at the end of pregnancy and whilst the hospital I’m under is the one I ‘should’ go to, I have been to the ‘closer’ hospital for a few emergency maternity assessment unit issues, and there were no issues as such. and if I needed to my understanding is I could transfer there or request to go there.
funnily I was also in a new job and kept that quiet until I’d had scans and extra tests I needed. I just asked the hospital to book the absolute latest appointment possible and said I needed to collect from school on those dates. Best of luck with it all, try not to stress about this though. As long as you get seen is the important thing.