"Antenatal Care 2021"

I really dislike attending the scans and antenatal care at Heartlands Hospital.  From my experience the staff seem disorganised at best and have been rude and arrogant at their worst. 

One such appointment I was most annoyed about, was when I had the first appointment of the day and still ended up waiting around and not leaving until some 3 hours later. What hold ups could there be for the first appointment of the day! What did my appointment being held up mean for the rest of the days schedule and the care then compromised due to perhaps then not have the time for others. 

The Doctors, consultants and midwives need to be on time and run to schedule. There were concerns that there was a hold up on the bloods being able to be taken for antenatal care holding up the midwives. Can I suggest maybe just get the midwives to complete the bloods at busy times? or have another phlebotomist as on the day I was there, there was only a single person completing this activity from what I could see.

Due to this backlog in phlebotomy, and then antenatal care the covid secure status was extremely compromised, with not even a window/door opened to help the situation.

The midwife I saw didn't have my notes sorted, then when they found them, they promptly lost them having to print them out again wasting more and more time; so where did my notes get randomly left? (sensitive info)? The midwife was a pleasant person yes, but professional no. I have no doubt they were qualified and caring, but that is not the complete package. 

I had been informed I needed this appointment as I was deemed needing to be under a consultant care. Only then not to see a consultant or registrar at all....so why did I need to attend a consultant lead unit when I could have just seen a midwife in the community instead!? A much less busy and crowded environment in the community would have been preferable surely.

It feels like this department don't understand that the women attending do actually have lives outside the maternity care they are receiving, and that our commitments outside the antenatal appointments are secondary and don't matter. These women have other children to tend to, they have jobs, they have elderly relatives to see, i could go on and on....and the staff in this  antenatal clinic need to understand this and do everything they can to run on time, as time keeping seems not to be important.

I witnessed a lot of chatting and tea drinking in lieu of actual work and then a lot of panic over how many patients were collecting in the waiting room.

The management of this unit needs an overhaul in my opinion. I would love to know if any actual changes occur in this department due to my comments, but as pregnancy doesn't last very long, I doubt anything will be done as I'll probably not have to return to notice, in essence I'm a temporary client, who will not be back to congratulate or scold on any changes anyway.