Kingston Hospital Maternity Services... continuous care for your future

Response to the Evening Standard Article – Wednesday, 27 April

Kingston Hospital was disappointed to read the article “Labour Isn’t Working” in the Evening Standard, published on Wednesday, 27 April.

The article stated that women in Kingston have zero choice regarding their birthing options. Women who choose to give birth at Kingston Hospital, in fact have numerous choices available to them when they are pregnant:

• Women have choice on how to access our Maternity service – they can choose to self refer via our website www.kingstonmaternity.org.uk or they can choose to be referred via the GP

• Women have choice on who provides their antenatal care – with options for midwifery-led care or shared care between a GP and Midwife. For women who have complications in pregnancy they will also have input from a Consultant Obstetrician as required

• At Kingston Hospital we believe that deciding where to have your baby is an important decision and therefore we give women the choice of where to have their baby – the options available at Kingston Hospital are; a home birth, birth in the Malden Suite our Midwifery-Led Unit, which has three birthing pools or birth on the Labour Ward with full pain relief options and care provided by Midwives, Anaesthetists and Consultant Obstetricians

These choices will depend on the individual needs of each woman, as well as her medical circumstances.

The choices available to women are documented on our bespoke maternity website www.kingstonmaternity.org.uk and we are just about to launch the ‘Your Maternity Choice Options leaflet’ across the local area to help further communicate the choices available to women and encourage them to actively choose the type and place of birth most suitable to them.

In addition, the article published C-Section rates across London, reported out-of-date figures from 2006/07.

The table below demonstrates the emergency, elective and total C-Section rate at Kingston Hospital for 2006/07 and onwards – the table shows a 2.2% reduction in the C-Section rate has been achieved since the figures, which are referred to in this article were released. As a result, Kingston now has the lowest C-Section rate in South West London.

It is disappointing that at the moment we are not enabled to provide the latest figures (2009/10), which demonstrate our further commitment to improving C-Section rates.

Since 2006/07 Kingston Hospital has introduced a Vaginal Birth after C-Section Clinic (VBAC) to support women in achieving a natural birth following a C-Section delivery. This has helped reduce the C-Section rate and support women in having greater choice over the type of delivery they want to have.

Kingston Hospital is committed to continually improving a woman’s entire pregnancy experience and providing real and informed choice in their antenatal care and delivery. We are extremely proud of the improvements that have been made over recent years and that will continue to be made. Our staff work hard and are dedicated to providing the highest quality of care to women and their families, which sadly this article has not recognised.