Congratulations and best of luck!
My experience of this area is that each hospital has its own rules/policy. When I had my first child at St Thomas' (nearly 10 years ago), it was NOT possible to book the private after-birth care. You could request to go into the private unit after birth, but could not book it in advance unless you were also having a private delivery. The private unit there had a separate team of midwives (rather than simply being a nicer room/food etc), and the NHS medical team covered it. It was expensive, around £600 per night then. This is in contrast to my second delivery at another hospital, where you could request/pay for a private room after the birth, but you received the same food/service/clinical staff; that was around £120 per night.

With NHS obstetrics I have never come across a hospital where you could choose your doctor. They work in teams and your delivery will be under whoever is on that day. NHS deliveries, including c-sections, will often be undertaken by registrars (the level below consultants) - this is totally normal practice. If you opt to pay for a private delivery most will be with a specific doctor - I'm not sure how those doctors schedule this in around their NHS work, but is seems to be the norm.

Message if you want any further info. Best wishes.

Congratulations on your pregnancy. I can't comment on Thomas's as I had my little one at C&W via planned C-Section but I think the modus operandi vis a vis private rooms is similar, they are on a FCFS basis, as well as priority of need - often women with multiple birth situations or women whose babies have been taken away to the NICU might understandably get priority.
For example, I had a private room at C&W and in the middle of the night they came into me extremely apologetically asking if I would mind moving to the ward due to a medical emergency (but that I didn't have to if I didn't want to). I was very happy to do so as it happens. When I gave birth at C&W, private rooms were around the £300 mark but from what I hear they are more than double that now presumably to reduce demand which always far exceeded supply.

I just want to thank everyone for their advice and feedback. I had my 1st baby in Chicago via cesarean and I'm now 14w pregnant and am hoping to have an NHS cesarean at St. Thomas in August 2018. I saw my 1st midwife at Waldron Health Centre in Lewisham and really liked her. I hope I'm scheduled to see her again (I think I am) at my 16w appointment. I saw a consultant at St. Thomas for my hypothyroidism and extensively verbalized that I want another cesarean. I'm getting the impression that as long as I stand firm with no interest in a VBAC, I will be booked for a cesarean at 36w for the procedure to take place at 39w. If there's any additional information anyone can provide, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Oh, I'd like to book a private recovery room at St. Thomas after my NHS cesarean. Does anyone have any experience with with private recovery rooms at St. Thomas after an NHS cesarean. How do get that scheduled? Thank you all in advance.

Sorry new to this - he DOES all of the scans himself.
Good luck

I can recommend Dr Keith Duncan at C&W he does NHS and private.
I am under him private and he doesn't all scans and will be delivering my baby through CS early next year.

I agree with previous posters. I've had two c-sections on the NHS and would highly recommend going that route. For my second pregnancy, a c-section was decided fairly early in the pregnancy, and I had maybe 2-3 separate appointments for that. I had both my babies at St Georges, and it was just the consultant who was there on the day. Each time, it was quite a large, capable team and I also felt in very good hands. The second time, I managed to pay for a private room (£100/night or £150/night with ensuite). I only ended up staying one night, but it was money very well spent. The wards are fine, but a private room is just a much nicer place to recover. Everything else was on the NHS. I'm not sure how it works at other hospitals, but at St Georges, the private rooms are only available on a first come-first serve basis and cannot be booked in advance. So my husband was told to ask about a private room immediately when we got to the hospital, and we also got there a little earlier than we'd been told to arrive in the hopes of getting a private room.
Hope that helps and good luck!

I had 2 C-sections, one was unplanned at the Portland as I was fully covered by insurance while the second one was planned at St Thomas's as I had no insurance cover then.

I would definitely recommend the NHS, even if there was insurance cover, with the sole reason that a public hospital, such as St Thomas's and C&W, should be able to handle any complications during the labour / c-section better than a private, as they see so many people with all sorts of problems day in day out.

My care at the Portland was fab but the c-section scar was horrible. The scar from St Thomas c-section has almost all disappeared now with great skills from the OBGYN at St Thomas's. However I did have to wait till early evening for my c-section because that there were many emergency surgeries on the day, which will need to be performed first before the planned ones. Also I could not get a private room as they were fully booked (the private patients get priority) so I ended up in a big room with 5 other ladies and their babies, and I could not say as highly the care in the ward afterwards as the OBGYN. I had these compensated by having a lot of help from my husband and my maternity nurse who came to look after the baby during the day when I was still in hospital. But even with the minuses I would go for St Thomas's again if I were to have a 3rd c-section.

Good luck.

I had a C Section on the NHS at C&W. You're assigned a consultant and have all the usual midwife appointments plus one appointment a month or so with your consultant. It's a named consultant but they don't necessarily carry out the procedure on the day. My consultant was terrific and I'm happy to recommend her, Mina Savvidou. I was under the impression that she would perform the procedure herself as she checked her diary to see which date suited her, however in the end, an obstetrician named Natasha Singh carried out the operation and she was also fantastic. She also had someone helping her, I didn't get the impression that she was junior. Don't worry, it will always be a doctor, just not necessarily your named consultant. I had no complications whatsoever, I can't see how anything would have been different had Ms Savvidou carried out the operation.

On the day I had about 10 people in the room including the 2 obstretricians, 2 anesthatists, several midwives etc. I felt in incredibly good hands and don't feel like I'd have had better medical care privately. (In fact it's exactly the same theatre etc). Yes you're getting better food and more 1 to one help postnatally but from a medical perspective, there is no difference in my opinion. If you're planning on BFing, they have all the time in the world in the NHS to help you with it.
A private room is on a FCFS basis on the NHS ward, I had one and it was £300/night. It's nothing special, internal window and boiling hot, was my overall impression.
Hope that helps.

Many thanks AbevilleMummy for sharing this info!

i've heard similarly good things about St Thomas's

I had my c-section at St Thomas' and midwifery care was with the clapham team.

My consultant was Dr Haytham Khalil but I've just googled him and he appears to have gone into private practice with his wife.

That said, I found St Thomas' amazing. Everything I asked for I got. My concerns were thoroughly respected and my overall welfare was all that seemed to matter. I can't recommend them enough.

Thank you AbbevilleMummy - that sounds promising. May I ask you which hospital you had the c-section at?
And thank you Julie for clarifying who is performing the c-sections.
If anyone else here has any experience, I would greatly appreciate to hear them

Hi
caeareans are indeed always performed by doctors who specialise in obstetrics, but often they will be performed by the doctors beneath consultant level - so called 'junior' doctors, however many of these will have been doing their specialism for many years and so are very experienced in themselves.
that's a lovely story about asking for continuity of carer - i definitely agree that if you ask for what you want you are much more likely to get it.
however, having said that, i do think a lot of the senior registrars are fantastic too
Julie

When I had my planned c section on the NHS I saw the consultant about 5 times in the run up to my delivery date and the same consultant performed my c section.

I wasn't a particularly high-risk case or anything like that, but I explained to my consultant that continuity of care was really important to me and therefore I only wanted to see him. We scheduled all our appointments for the days that he covered my hospital and scheduled the c section date for a day that he knew he would be on duty.

When the day came, we were told by a midwife that as the consultant had worked all night on emergencies, a registrar was going to do my c-section. I freaked out a little at which point hubby stepped out of the room to have a quiet word and lo and behold original consultant performed the c section.

Hi Julie,

Thank you for taking the time to reply so extensivly.

Can I ask you who is carrying out the uncomplicated c-sections if not the consultant him/herself? That sounds very worrying to me that there might not be a doctor present while having some major surgery.

Many thanks