Whether you are pregnant and thinking about where to have your baby or someone thinking about joining our team, I am delighted that you have chosen to visit our website.
I hope you find the information useful but if there is something you would like to know and you cannot find the information here, why not give our admin support Danielle Brooks, a call (01932 722876) or email at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
and she will be able to put you in touch with the right person to talk to (please note emails to this mailbox are checked periodically Mon- Fri only, any urgent queries should be directed to the correct department).
For queries regarding ultrasound appointments please call 01932 722665
If you need any urgent clinical advice please call:
24hr midwifery lead triage - 01932 722835
If you are less than 12 weeks pregnant, you can also call:
Early Pregnancy Unit – 01932 722662
(EPU opening hours are Mon-Fri 0900-1300)
Sandra Houston
Head of Midwifery and Gynae Nursing
Amenity Rooms on Joan Booker (Postnatal) Ward
Private room with en suite facilities
£200 per night
Upgraded amenity room with bathroom facilities shared with one other room
£130 per night
Single amenity room sharing ward facilities
£85 per night
Payment for your amenity room is required upon discharge from the ward.
Please call us on:
Joan Booker Ward – 01932 722659
Midwifery Triage – 01932 722835
Labour Ward – 01932 722399
Breastfeeding Clinics and Support
For advice and support with breastfeeding please come along to one of our clinics:
Topaz Suite Ashford Hospital, TW15 3AA
01784 884181
Mondays 12.30pm-2pm (drop in)
BIBS (Breast is Best Support Group) & St Peter’s Hospital at Sayes Court Children’s Centre,
Addlestone, KT15 1NB
01932 851502
Tuesdays 10am-12pm (drop in)
Baby Café @ Clarendon Children’s Centre
Ashford, TW15 2HZ
01784 424759
Thursdays 12.30pm-2pm (please phone first)
Baby café @ YPOD
Woking, GU21 6JD
01483 757160
Mondays 10am-12pm
Grovelands Sure Start Centre Walton, KT12 2EQ
01932 229313
Thursdays 9.45am-11am (please phone first)
Maternity staff share message that “breast is best” (28/06/12)
Staff and volunteers from the maternity unit at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals organised a cake sale on Wednesday 27th June to support National Breastfeeding Awareness Week.
Infant Feeding Advisor, Kim McHarg, said: “We wanted to encourage people to come and talk to us about breastfeeding and pick up our information, so thought the cake sale was a good way of doing it. We are going to use the money raised to update our breastfeeding information DVDs for parents and staff.” ... read more
Trust approves funding for ten additional midwives
Chief Executive, Andrew Liles (centre), with Head of Maternity Services Sandra Houston (fifth from left), Matron Alison Howker (sixth from left) and midwives from the unit
Trust Chief Executive, Andrew Liles, took time to celebrate with staff in the hospital’s maternity unit earlier this week as the Trust has recently agreed a further ten new midwifery posts for the department.
Said Head of Maternity Services, Sandra Houston: “We are delighted that the Trust has recognised the need to expand our excellent team of midwives by a further ten new posts. This will ensure local women have the very best possible maternity services here at St Peter’s Hospital. Over the last year we have once again seen the number of women choosing to have their babies here increase, with over 4,200 births in the department during the last financial year. We want to be able to provide the very best care for local women and these new posts will help us do that. We have also had a really successful recruitment campaign recently and the unit really is going from strength to strength. It’s a real boost to staff to have the Chief Executive come along to celebrate with them and to have a tour of the unit.” ... read more
New unit offers more choice for local women
The Trust Board at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals has approved plans to build a new Midwifery Led Unit, which will be located in Abbey Wing at St Peter’s Hospital alongside the existing maternity facilities.
The new unit will provide a ‘home from home’ environment for women who have normal and uncomplicated pregnancies and want to give birth in a less clinical setting. Sandra Houston, Head of Midwifery, said: “This is absolutely fantastic news for local women and our midwives can’t wait to see the new unit built. It’s all about offering a choice of birthing experience to women and providing different facilities to enable that choice.” ... read more
Philosophy of Maternity Care
Excellent maternity care must be comprehensive and flexible to respond to the clinical and social needs of the family. We understand that every woman, baby and family is unique and will have different needs depending on their own circumstances. As such we want to work in partnership to help the woman and her partner achieve the experience that is right for them
Offering Choice over where and how to give birth will lead to a more flexible, responsive and accessible maternity service. We will ensure that the woman and her partner have the correct information to help them reach the choice and decisions that are right for them. When circumstances mean that the choice has to be changed, we will ensure there is enough information for them to understand the reasons for this.
We will ensure that the care we give follows "best practice" and is research based. We will aim to develop an effective maternity service which meets the needs of the local population working within the national service framework. We will audit the care given and our practices and update them in the light of new evidence
We will treat everyone with kindness, understanding and dignity and will respect the privacy, religious and cultural beliefs of families. We will endeavour to provide effective, high quality communication between healthcare professionals, women and their family's which will empower them to become active partners in decision making in their overall care. Interpreting services will be provided for women where English is not their first language.
The new website for NHS SEC has now been launched and the maternity services pages can be found by following:
www.southeastcoast.nhs.uk/maternityservices
A Virtual Tour of the Maternity Unit
Following feedback from parents and staff, we saw that the ”turn up and tour” of the maternity unit at the weekend was not working well and was causing significant disruption for those new mums who had had their baby and for the staff trying to care for them. We were also told it was not working for those who turned up to tour and who were left feeling disappointed if they didn’t see everything they had hoped to see.
Instead, the team have produced a short DVD covering all the key areas in the maternity unit. Ask one of the team for a copy at your next visit.
You can also view the 10 minute video on YouTube by clicking here.
About the Unit
Maternity Video Transcript.pdf