Which Hospital - Help Please!

[caribprincess]

I am in the very early stages of pregnancy (5 weeks) and live in Wimbledon, London. My doctor has given me the option of St Georges (Tooting), St Heliers (Carshalton) or Kingston hospitals. I noticed a thread on this same topic from last year but would be grateful for people's perceptions that are current for today.

I have already been advised against Kingston as it is apparently very busy and people have been left on their own during labout but would appreciate all views!

Please write.

Thank you :-)

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There is a website somewhere that gives info on the maternity units at hospitals. I seem to remember comments on there from people. I'll see if I can find it and post a link.

This is it here
It includes a survey of what mothers think in the 'hospital ratings section' of each hospital.
There is also a couple of old threads from last year that might be useful to look at here and here

Thank you very much!

Hi there, would second what others say and you may also find the BirthChoice UK website helpful - this also pulls together the data from the Healthcare Commission website. None of this guarantees you will have a good experience, partly because this can be very subjective, but at least it lets you see how hospitals rate against the national average, and see if some aspect of the ratings is way out of line (eg C section rates, poor support for infant feeding). If you are planning to do NCT antenatal classes, the teachers are usually quite knowledgeable about aspects of the different hospitals in the area although most will stop short of directly recommending one.

Good luck with whatever you decide

Hi

I am local to Kingston, due in April. I have spoken to lots of mums in the area and on the whole most of them have told me that they have had good - or at least reasonable - experiences there. I guess a lot of it comes down to luck as to how busy they are.

One friend had a very preemie baby with big heart problems there and she firmly believes that he wouldn't have survived at any other hospital - as Kingston was the best equipped to deal with such difficult situations. I think that's worth a lot.

I'm registered to have my baby at Kingston in April too. So far, I cannot fault the service. The mindives and sonographers have been lovely, I've been able to get appointmnets when I've needed them with ease and when I was admitted pre-Christmas with some problems, the staff were friendly and calm, the ward clean and comfortable and I was made to feel well cared for. All London hospitals are busy, Kingston no exception, but don't let that be your sole reason for discounting it. Also...worth baring in mind there's the option of the Midwife -led Unit too.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I hated St Georges when my friend was in there. So did she...diabolical post-natal care!