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Slow to let us in. Great aftercare. Bad...

Story from nhs.uk

"Slow to let us in. Great aftercare. Bad..."

About: Royal Berkshire Hospital

I delivered my first baby in RBH in June 18. Overall I was happy with the delivery and aftercare but there are a few points to improve.

The good points:

- Very calm team during delivery and fully involved in decisions onceI was admitted to hospital

- Plenty of time to ask questions and tests/results were explained

- Plenty of bonding time with baby

- Actively encouraged to breastfeed and supported when this didn't happen naturally

- Individuals from all teams are committed to provide great care within the system constraints

- Shared room wasn't too full so more space to move around and chances to catch up on sleep

- Support telephone line after discharge

The bad points:

-Way too slow to provide phone assessment before we went there. I was in excruciating pain, unable to talk on the phone for 2 straight minutes, and the plethora of questions to answer before being allowed to go to hospital to deliver the baby went on and on (for about 15 mins). This meant that by the time I got there, I was 8cm dilated and epidural wasn't an option. This needs to be reviewed please!

-Seen by a different midwife every day during my 4 day stay in the postnatal ward. Paediatrician didn't review bilirubin results herself and this led to a longer stay in the ward as UV lights not used long enough.

-Visiting policy is rubbish. My husband couldn't stay the day due to work issues and my mum wasn't allowed to stay with me other than for the 2 hrs of general visiting. We explained to staff that my Mum would be the only person at my bedside in the morning but they wouldn't budge even though baby needed continuous monitoring (under UV lights).

I was left absolutely exhausted. Please consider changing visiting policy to "1 family member" during 8am-9pm rather than just the father of the baby.

-Swab test taken during stay in ward were never found in the system so results of this test are unknown!

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Responses

Response from Royal Berkshire Hospital 5 years ago
Royal Berkshire Hospital

Submitted on 12/09/2018 at 10:21
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06

Many thanks for your feedback on the service; it is very good to hear that our team supported you in all the aspects you have described. With regards to the negative aspects, we understand that the phone conversation can be lengthy with our triage line; this is to ensure that we are able to obtain the correct medical information and make sure that women are directed to the most appropriate delivery area for their care. We will discuss the points you've raised with the manager of the triage area to review how this process could be reduced.

With regards to the different midwife on each shift, we have to cover a 24 hour service and this means we do have to rota midwives in a safe manner. We have a combination of full- and part-time midwives and we do our best to try to support some continuity within these constraints. I am unable to comment regarding the bilirubin review or the swab result without more details but if you wish for us to look further into this, please feel to contact our Patient Relations Team on 0118 322 8338 with your details so we can do this for you.

The visiting policy was changed recently on the postnatal wards in response to a survey that Maternity Voices completed for us. Maternity Voices are women who have used our service - they completed this survey and the feedback we received was that they wished to have a restriction on visitors other than partners. When a birth partner cannot attend, the midwives are aware that if a woman requests another individual they can come in their place and we are sorry that this was not explained to you.

Sarah Bailey

Matron for Hospital Maternity Services

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