"Hospital was very clean, very quiet,..."

What I liked

Hospital was very clean, very quiet, really nice.

What could be improved

My partner was sent to book into the maternity department to continue her midwife care after moving into the area.

We arrived at the maternity department, all the lights were off and some barely legible writing was left on the open door. I took the chance and walked in to see if anyone was around. At the very back of the department was a midwife.

We had several issues.

The receptionist sent us off in the wrong direction which wasn't a great start.

The midwife was 30 minutes late. Apparently the previous person arrived very late and was seen anyway. This should have knocked all of her appointments back but instead we was given an even shorter appointment instead. This isn't really acceptable.

Secondly the midwife answered pretty much all of the booking questions without asking my partner. She would run through the list checking yes or no and occasionally asking the odd the question. We actually had to stop her several times to correct her. These are patient questions and should be asked. Not assumed.

The midwife was very short and made a number of offhand comments criticising my partner. I wouldn't have a problem if these were justified but they plainly weren't. The midwife had never met my partner and the majority of negative comments seemed harsh and unprovoked.

Finally the midwife didn't help at all with further care. Instead gave us a list of phone numbers to call to book our next appointment. This effectively meant that we still had no official midwife care which was the whole point of the visit.

When we recently saw our official midwife they scoffed at the way my partner was booked in and said it was incomplete. We have since been sent back to 'try again'.

I am sure the care isn't always this poor. On our visit though it was woeful.