Contact location
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St Thomas' Hospital
care of community administration office
6th floor, North Wing
Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7EH
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Tel: 020 7188 6863 / 2735
Fax: 020 7188 6842
Community midwives are midwives who work in the community, for example in GP surgeries and health centres. The midwives also visit women at home, usually for up to 10 days after they have given birth. Health visitors usually take over post-natal (after birth) care from around day 10, but this can be earlier if a woman lives in a SureStart area. If a woman needs extra support, the community midwives may visit for up to 28 days after she has given birth.
All women are offered a choice of birth in hospital or at home.
Community midwifery teams
The community midwives work to three models of care: traditional; caseload; and shared caseload.
Traditional team
Midwives in the traditional teams offer antenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth) care to women in a defined area. They also offer 24 hour on call support for home births. The areas they cover are:
- Westminster (Southwark SE1, SE17, SE11)
- Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and North Lewisham (Southwark SE16)
- Stockwell (Lambeth SW8, SW4, SW9)
- Streatham (Lambeth SW16)
- Clapham & Clapham Manor (Lambeth SW4, SW2)
Caseload team
Each caseload team consists of 6 midwives who look after around 220 women each year. Caseload midwives work in pairs to improve the continuity of care and offer care before, during and after birth, including home births. The teams cover the following areas:
- Kennington Sure Start (SE1, SE11)
- Riverside (SE1, SE16)
- South Bank (Walworth Surgery SE17)
- Surrey Quays (SE16)
- Teenphase (covers all areas)
- Valley (SW16)
Home birth team
Women who live in post codes, SE1, SE16, SE8, SE4 and SE14 and would like to have a home birth can be referred to the home birth team at any stage of pregnancy after 16 weeks.
Women can self-refer or be referred by midwives or their doctors by emailing riversideteam@gstt.nhs.uk.
The home birth team will do their best to accommodate every request.
Read more about the option of a home birth or view our leaflet: Home birth - why not? (PDF 42Kb)
Shared caseload team
The shared caseload team of 6 midwives is based in the Clapham Family Group Practice (SW4). They mainly support women registered with this surgery, although they also see other referrals, seeing around 200 women each year. These midwives offer all-round midwifery care, including antenatal classes.
Other midwifery teams
The Teenphase Plus team offers midwifery care to teenagers within the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham catchment area. This includes home bookings, home antenatal visits, antenatal classes and postnatal drop-in sessions.
Postnatal clinics
Postnatal clinics take place in:
- Stockwell Children's Centre, Combemere Road SW9 - Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 9am - 5pm
- Mawbey Borough Health Centre, 39 Wilcox Close SW8 - Thursdays from 2pm - 5pm
- Clapham Manor Children's Centre, 1 Beaumont Close, SW4 - Wednesdays from 9am - 12 noon
- Springfield Health Centre, 110 Union Road, SW8 - Thursdays from 2pm - 4 pm
Consultants working in the community
The community service is led by midwives. However, a number of consultants run antenatal clinics in the community. For further information, see the antenatal clinic page.