"Pudsey Community Midwife Services"

I became pregnant with my first child in Spring 2020 during the initial Covid-19 pandemic.  I have been a registered patient of the Health Centre at Pudsey since moving to the area approx 14 years ago, so contacted the GP to advise them of my pregnancy who explained I needed to contact their community midwife team to organise appointments.

I made my initial booking in appointment and met my first midwife who discussed the initial steps of confirming my pregnancy and booking me in as an expectant mother into the systems.   During the face to face assessment I was asked if I wanted initial health screening which I was adamant I did. I had to return home for the remaining half of the appointment to for a telephone call (due to covid-19 restrictions) and the midwife advised they had forgotten if I wanted the screening or not and hadn't booked it in, they then rectified this error.

At my next appointment (16 weeks) no one told me it was via telephone so I travelled to the surgery but this time it was a 'new' midwife.  I had some questions regarding how long to take some medication for and I was told 'until you are 12 weeks', I pointed out I was already 16 weeks at this point and the midwife had 'crib' notes in front of her.

Following my 16 week appointment I started to have problems with bleeding so as advised I contacted the Pudsey midwife team for guidance. No one called back so I rang 111 and was triaged to hospital for assessment.  It took over 5 days for the midwife team to return my call.

At my 3rd appointment I had yet another midwife, the lack of consistency has made it impossible to build up a relationship and I felt I was constantly repeating myself to ensure they were briefed on my pre-pregnancy medical conditions. It also had to be re-arranged as the midwife had booked it in 'too early', which meant that I had to re-arrange my NHS work twice to ensure I had the time off.

At my 4th appointment I had the same midwife (hurrah) but after doing the growth measurements and a brief discussion and about to leave the midwife tried to hand me a set of maternity notes - they were NOT MY notes!  Thankfully I work for the NHS so under GDPR handed them straight back and pointed out the error.

At my most recent appointment when I arrived there was yet another new midwife to meet (who was actually really lovely) but was not able to access any of the computer systems, so asked me to book in at reception for another appointment, only for me to be told there were no appointments remaining.  So I have had to accept any appointment I could get in order to be seen this week.

I was told a health visitor would be in touch before Christmas, this did not happen, so at my appointment just after Christmas they organised for them to contact me again. They emailed me information about Breast feeding (yet more links!) and organised to call me but forgot as they had left their diary somewhere.

I am still waiting to discuss what birth plan options are available to me - I am 37+5 now and have been given an induction date by the hospital, but each time I broach birth options I am told to either discuss it with the midwife / consultant and get told it will be discussed at a later point, or by someone else.  My lack of knowledge as a first time mum is making me so nervous about raising queries as I have no idea what is 'right' or not.

My feedback is as follows.

1. Lack of consistency in care - ideally during a pregnancy for first time mums I would appreciate the same midwife so I can build a rapport

2. My birth / My body / My baby - that's in all the information / links I get thrown at me yet every time I want a personal discussion about my personal circumstances / baby birth plan / medical concerns no one seems to have either the time or inclination to discuss it with me, so I feel woefully under prepared to give birth in a few weeks.

3. Poor organisation.  From tests not being requested, to not being told what type of appointment I was having (phone / telephone), appointment being cancelled, been handed someone else patient notes, people not contacting you when they say they will.

I can honestly say that the community midwife experience I have had has been poor. If I am fortunate to be able to have another baby in the next few years I would ensure I did not use this service again.  As an NHS worker I appreciate the pandemic has put our services under severe strain, new ways of working, but the issues outlined above come down to basic administration, patient information checking and patient care.