Kingston Hospital or St Helier for complex maternity care and C-section

[marvol0us]

Hi there, what do people think of the maternity care at Kingston hospital vs St Helier?

I’m going to need a c-section and there will be complications due to fibroids so I want to make sure I have a good surgeon. It’s my first baby.

I’d appreciate any advice. I thought about going private but it’s very expensive.

Absolutely Kingston. Outstanding maternity care. You can compare both hospitals on the CQC website for each maternity unit. I had my baby at Kingston (and I also work there in the maternity unit... but I won't say what I do as that's outing). Top notch care, my csection was wonderful and calm, recovery was tough but felt supported. Baby was in NICU afterwards and she was well looked after.

I'm local. DD was born at Kingston (Consultant led care). Fabulous. I shall never forget the wonderful Mr Robin Ballard.

DD is now 28; DS 31, their friends are now having babies. From what I hear, hands down to Kingston.

Epsom and St Helier are twinned. Epsom recently had a damning maternity observation. I'd be worried about a joint culture. They are also part of the St Georges Group nowadays which I guess would be best for a very complex case, but short of that, I've always heardnit's a bit rough round the edges and unpleasant except for an in and out birth, and home six hours later.

I had my DD at Kingston in 2024 via planned c section. I can't fault the prenatal care or the surgical team who were top notch, however the "care" I received afterwards on the ward was appallingly bad. I was reduced to tears on a number of occasions and frankly couldn't wait to get out of there. Perhaps I was just very unfortunate with the team that was on duty. Anecdotally two close friends of mine had c sections at St Helier followed by NICU stays and said staff were fantastic.

One of my GDC was born at St Helier maternity unit. The care was good and the staff were excellent (they had extended stay due to late pregnancy bleeding and complications) and post natal care was good. Locally its well regarded unit with good community facing teams and ante natal care but its under threat of closure with services moving to the much less well regarded Epsom. DC unsure of where they will go for the second if St Helier closes - its a very popular unit locally. Of their NCT class of 10 babies most went to St Helier, no bad experiences. Worth noting if you are not white that this was a pretty diverse group of babies and parents.

The only problems were during antenatal care there were repeated comms failures (both process and systems) between teams, departments and community services, confusion over booking systems for tests etc. This caused as much frustration to the clinical staff as patients and is not unique to St Helier - other GDC and family ante natal care had the same comms/process failures in different geographic areas. Integrated comms/comms management in most areas is still operating in the early 1990s.

Niece had her babies at Kingston, 5-10 years ago and had no issues.

Its an unusual area having a couple of decent units fairly close - around my way you would be wanting to go private!