Considering changing hospital and midwife care early in pregnancy

[NewmumBeth]

Hi all, I’m looking to hear what other mums may do or maybe you have done it- on changing care with hospital / midwife?

The maternity part of the nearest hospital to me is rated badly by the CQC and I did also try gather some opinions of those who have been there and they weren’t great in the majority of cases.

therefore, I’m considering giving birth at a hospital a bit further away (additional 20 mins) that is rated well and has good reviews. I’m very early on so haven’t had my first midwife appointment yet, but essentially I guess I will be regard to the other hospitals midwife team - which does suck a bit for further away appointments, but i guess otherwise I won’t get to know my midwife that will actually be at my birth (?)

but anyway, I know I’ve got a build a thick skin and advocate for myself but I’m also worried about how to approach the point and would welcome views. Part of me isn’t sure if it’s just rude and insulting to say I don’t want to revive care here because I’ve seen the reviews. I also am worried they will try talk me out of it. Your thought are welcomed - I’m on first trimester with my first baby and clearly just want some welcome thoughts 😂 ❤️

If you are having doubts this early on I would go with the other hospital without a doubt.

Does the other hospital do maternity self referrals? If not I would get in touch with your GP and say you want your care transferred there and for them to do a referral ☺️

I wouldnt worry for a second about anyone being offended, youre a small fish in a big pond to NHS services they wont care

good luck ☺️

Also just to add the midwife you see for your appointments wont be the same as midwives who work on the ward and deliver your baby, unfortunately it doesn’t work this way anymore and they are now separate teams xx

You won't see the same midwife when you give birth, they'll be someone at the hospital and will probably change mid shift anyway.

I had my midwife appointments at the hospital 12 miles from me but as that is midwife only had my son at the hospital 35 miles away.

You will be unable to change the team who provide your community care. This will depend on your GO surgery and address so will automatically be linked to the nearest hospital. When you have your booking appointment they will ask where you would like to have your baby. Just tell them you would prefer to deliver at the other hospital and they will refer you. You will then have scans and and obstetric care you may need at the other hospital but routine Antental appointments with your community midwife will be with the team local to you

Just self refer to the hospital you want. It's not a big deal.

I tried, they said I had to wait and talk to the midwife at current referral (even though I can’t actually get them to do anything for another 3 weeks lol)

Thank you all so so much. I honestly didn’t know this and I’ve spoken to both maternity midwife teams and neither mentioned that the midwife I had would be different to the one at birth anyway … which is super helpful to know . Thank you so very much

You don’t see the same midwife when you give birth.
I had one midwife at my doctors surgery
and then obviously gave birth at the hospital with completely different midwives.
when you have the baby yet again you’ll see different midwives/health visitors x

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Your midwife in community won’t be the same midwife at the birth, so that won’t be affected by you choosing another hospital.

It’s also quite likely that your community midwife will be used to woman option to go to out of area hospitals so will guide you on that - for example, it may be that you need to go to your chosen hospital rather than your community midwife for blood tests, but she will make you aware of this and how to get the blood tests booked. It’s unlikely she would be offended or find you rude for wanting to deliver elsewhere due to reviews. It’s actually quite a common thing (I’m a community midwife).

If you’re early on you’re fine waiting for your booking appointment to have this discussion with your midwife. I have 3 local hospitals that women under my care typically book at but right now I have women booked under 5 different hospitals for one reason or another (sometimes preference, sometimes due to CQC reports). If it’s a hospital I’m not used to dealing with I’m honest about that but reassure that this is a me issue and that I’ll find out how and that I’ll get everything sorted!

Hope this gives you reassurance ☺️

Never met a midwife before birth involved in my deliveries.
They did say you're supposed to have a named midwife and know the team, but that's very seldom happened for anyone I know. I believe in other countries they phone your doctor when you go in labour, so unless you're early/unexpected circumstances, you have a high chance of knowing the person who deliver your baby, but unless there have been very recent changes, not come across that here.

If you haven’t had your booking appointment yet, you should be able to go straight ahead and book with the new hospital. There will likely be a box to tick to say you’re transferring from somewhere else - it’s just so your records get transferred over but since you haven’t had the booking appointment yet you might not even be in the system.

I would definitely move if you are worried about the reviews to give yourself some peace of mind. My local hospital is dreadful so it’s very common for people to go elsewhere. One thing to bear in mind though - as soon as you leave the hospital after having the baby, you’re sent back to the hospital closest to you. I found that’s when I got the attitude but you are entitled to the exact same care no matter where you give birth. Congratulations and hope all goes well with the pregnancy.

I know a few people who have done this and if your local hospital is poorly rated it's probably quite common, noone will be offended! You will still have your routine appointments with the midwife at your GP surgery and then just have your scans at the other hospital that you want to give birth in, if you become high risk for any reason you'll probably go for consultant appointments at the hospital you are giving birth in but lots of people stay as midwife led. As others have said the community midwives don't deliver the babies in the hospital so midwife would be different anyway. Only chance of having your community midwife delivering your baby would be in some areas if you had a home birth or at some birth centres but this is area dependent if the community midwives cover this or a separate team and would also depend if your midwife happened to be on call and not at another birth when you went into labour.

Unless you go private you can't pick and choose. It will be whoever is on duty that delivers your baby you don't get a designated midwife.

Haven’t RTFT so apologiesvitf it’s already been said, but this isn’t true. All you need to do is self refer to the other maternity unit online (google the maternity unit you want -how to self refer should come right up). Then wait for your booking appointment with them and bingo - you’ve switched. It’s nothing to do with the midwife at your current unit and she won’t care two hours anyway!

I’m a midwife and honestly don’t worry, I book ladies all the time who want to book their hospital care with neighbouring trusts, they see us for community midwife appointments and then have any hospital related care with their chosen hospital. Recently most of our neighbouring trusts have started using badgernet like us so we can even see their maternity records from the neighbouring trust and they can see ours which makes things so much easier. We can even send the initial referral through in the record we use to their chosen hospital. I myself had my community midwife care with my local team but the hospital care with my neighbouring trust I happen to work at

Congratulations! Echoing what others have said that the community and delivery midwife teams are different, just given birth to our second and the team changed mid-labour too.
I switched at 37 weeks as had a bad experience with the hospital triage, and even then I could self-refer and the new hospital rang me quickly to arrange booking in. All subsequent midwife appts were there and they redid all the tests (think it would have been different had both trusts used badger notes).

Trust your gut, and you can always blame it on something like the journey to the hospital is better!

Even if you go private you still don’t get to pick and choose your midwife - the Lindo Wing is staffed by NHS midwives on standard contracts!

You can if you book a private or independent midwife though. Then she’s all yours for the duration (and often beyond) wherever you choose to give birth 😊

Here in my country it’s a whole different system here. You don’t know who’s gonna be at your labor until labor actually happens 😅