Warwick Hospital 2021-02-24 Person 3 5 0

Delivery suite - Good atmosphere in room. Midwife supportive with good expertise. Felt delays with handover, waited 2h or more for an epidural so received at 9cm dilated - not acceptable especially as national guidelines state a woman in labour should receive analgesia within 45 mins of requesting it. Also felt day midwife pre handover was pushing for no epidural and encouraging entonox only although I clearly stated by wishes on admission for an early epidural. Did not get wiped down or washed post delivery although offered and transferred to postnatal ward like this which was unacceptable. Postnatal/Swan ward - both nurses from am/pm shift were lovely and helpful but I could see that they were stretched and couldn't provide the care for all the ladies that was required especially since partners weren't allowed on ward due to covid. I felt covid precautions were poor as a mask alone does not suffice. The ward had a lot of unnecessary thoroughfare to and from labour ward. Various staff members were involved which was unnecessary eg dinner ladies etc. Curtains were constantly left open providing no respect/dignity and side tables were moved and not repositioned. Most importantly I was not informed that first time mothers are expected to stay the first night for feeding input. The nurses had the expectation that I stay but I had no clue why and in the end had to complete a self discharge. My understanding was only that I stay because my newborn required meconium obs for 12h. Additionally, I was assured that a newborn hearing test and the infant feeding team would visit during my stay which did not happen - I asked at 3pm when they were coming after waiting the whole day then was told they had gone home. So basically the nurses had not made the requests. This meant that I had to attend with baby another day for 2 separate appointments for each of these - does not make sense when trying to minimise contact during a pandemic and a waste of resources! Not a great experience overall, need more staff/input esp if partners not allowed to stay.