About the service
The Pregnancy Assessment Unit (PAU) is a department within maternity services which provides care to women booked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with any new pregnancy-related issues or provides support and monitoring to women with high-risk pregnancies. We also provide care to women experiencing complications postnatally. We care for women from 16 weeks pregnant up to 4 weeks postnatal. Please note we do not provide care for newborn babies.
We operate a 24/7 service whereby you can self-refer via telephone or be referred via your GP, community midwife or NHS 111 service.
Where is PAU based?
The Pregnancy Assessment Unit is situated within our main maternity building which can be easily accessed via entrance C.
On arrival, we ask you to report to our main reception area where you will be booked in by one of our receptionists. They will inform us you have arrived and we will ask you to attend the department in priority order. We operate a robust triage system whereby we see patients based on their clinical needs and urgency.
Please do not worry if you see another patient being seen before you even though you arrived earlier, this is because the midwife has made a clinical telephone assessment and feels that the patient requires to be seen more urgently.
If you have any questions please speak to the receptionists who can discuss this with you.
Why you may need to visit PAU
In the Pregnancy Assessment Unit, we often see people for planned attendance but mainly emergency attendance. This usually involves PV bleeding, labour, abdominal pain or trauma, reduced fetal movements, spontaneous rupture of membranes, hypertension and pre-eclampsia.
