Recent experiences of giving birth at Royal London or Homerton?

[Citydwellerhippo]

Hi all,

very new here 😄. I am trying to figure out which hospital to go with. My choices are royal London (closest) and homerton.

Homerton has better rating and reviews overall it seems. But royal London has better NICU care I think. The distance difference is not so bad that I cannot consider homerton. The reviews for royal London seem to be from a long time ago as well and they were quite mixed so I would love to hear a little bit more from anyone who has recently given birth in royal London hospital. And how was it in the run-up to it?

There’s a Facebook group called E3 Mums and Dads which will have lots of people who gave birth at RLH

Thank you very much

I had my son at Homerton 2 years ago and he had a NICU stay as was extremely unwell. I am so grateful he was born at Homerton, as the NICU care in particular was phenomenal. I believe it’s a level 3 NICU, there were definitely families there who had been transferred in from many other hospitals. I think Homerton has narrowed down its catchment recently though.

I have heard only good things from lots of people on Homerton (only one negative). I want to go there but it is a bit harder to get to for me. I'm trying to see if it's worth the extra travel. It seems to be worth it.... Thanks for sharing

I live in Homerton catchment area despite not being in borough. As someone fairly local, I can tell you that people fight to go there over all the other local hospitals to give birth.

I don't have experience of Royal London, but I do of Homerton from 2023. I would say it was fine, but not amazing. Depends on how far the travel is might be worth it, but for my second I'm choosing to give birth at my more local hospital instead.

My issues that I'm sure a lot of hospitals have but to be aware of, mostly to do with it being so busy:

1. Wait times for appointments were sometimes 2 hours. There are clinics on certain days (ie wed afternoon) where it's incredibly busy. If you have something like gestational diabetes, you have to come in to your appointments only on these days for the specific clinic and the wait time was incredibly frustrating. This might have been solved a bit with the reduction in the catchment area. They could not tell you in advance how delayed your appointment will be.
2. You change midwife every appointment. Most midwives were fine but so busy it felt rushed. But you didn't really build any relationships, I never saw the same one twice.
3. Aftercare was terrible (as at all hospitals I think). They completely forgot my lunch after my planned c section (which you need to fast for and come out of mid afternoon), kept forgetting meds, zero help for breastfeeding and made me feel bad when I gave my baby a little formula because she wouldn't latch (told me I'd given her too much and panicked me but hadn't provided me any guidance). Just didn't really feel any care (again because they were so busy, and I gave birth in a month that isn't a particularly busy time for births in general). They rushed me moving beds from the high risk area to the low risk area because they were so busy. For a planned c section you go to the post natal ward to check in, we turned up early and managed it but I know the next 2 had to go to the pre-natal ward instead with all the women in the first stages of labour because all the beds were full.

On the positives I had a planned c section and they were very good at accommodating and accepting this, the actual c section itself was very good and when we went to triage for issues that was pretty good. But just to balance up all sides and give you my experience, for me the longer journey just wasn't worth it for the experience. My local hospital is only good for maternity, but so far has been very organised, appointments on time or early, so I like it.

Homerton must have improved massively because it was a massive disaster 14 years ago when I gave birth there. Though they were wonderful when my DC was ill at 3 months old.

I’m sorry to hear aftercare still so poor after a CS — that was pretty much my experience in 2012 with DS! CS itself fine, but postnatal ward stuff so ghastly I discharged myself early.

My sister in law had a bad experience at Homerton in March this year and she said no one in her NCT had a positive experience. She also said if they have another baby they would try to go private

I had my second baby at Homerton at the end of 2025. Like a previous poster, I found wait times for clinics could be very long at times and I saw a different midwife each time (most of whom were great, but continuity would have made for a nicer experience). I also had a frustrating experience on one occasion with the emergency antenatal service when I was feeling very poorly towards the end of my pregnancy whilst trying to manage late onset gestational diabetes, and felt quite dismissed by one doctor after an extremely long wait to be assessed. Saying all that, the care I got in the early pregnancy unit for two early bleeds was very good and I ended up having the birth I wanted, in spite of my pregnancy becoming quite complicated by the end. The actual midwife-led care during labour in the birth centre was fantastic. My baby had both tongue tie and jaundice, and we were brilliantly supported post-birth by specialist teams. Like someone up thread said, as far as I’m aware they’ve limited their catchment area since I was pregnant, so it’d no longer be an option for me, but if I were pregnant again and I could go to Homerton, I would.