just had a run in with the maternity ward bounty photographer

[StateofConfusion]

And having previously defended them and loved my pictures of my eldest children todays 'rep' has made me agree they need to be removed from wards!

She arrived originally before breakfast turned on the lights and opened curtains waking me and the other Mum up, then continued to talk over the peadiatrician who was checking my dd over.

Eventually she sulked off but apparently came back when I was asleep (how dare I?) Last time she came back as I'd just settled dd and was eating lunch which had just arrived.

I said No photos at the minute thanks she got most insistant that its for security reasons?? (I'm going home today) and said she'd just lean round and take them, dd was asleep on my lap in a v pillow whilst I ate. I said again, not right now I'm eating she left brochures and went off muttering quite loudly.

I'm hormonal so ofc this has upset me, but not as much as the first time mum across they way! WHY are these people allowed to just walk around a maternity ward being so fucking rude!

Marking place - I'll sign a petition against this.

The bounty lady I saw was very polite and non-pushy - I refused the photo as dd was bright red, puffy and bruised from the birth, and she was fine with that. She showed me the CB form in there, and she seemed very official.

I did give her my personal details - which now makes me a little bit angry. It didn't occur to me that I could/should refuse this - she looked and acted like a member of hospital staff. She had a uniform very like a nurses' uniform & an ID badge - I gave her my details just like I would give any of my/my baby's details to any of the medical staff.

Thinking back, the experience was intrusive - even though the woman was perfectly nice and polite, there is just something very disingenuous about the whole way Bounty has managed to buy access to new, and possibly vulnerable, mothers, from the hospitals that are meant to make patient care a priority.

The experiences of some other posters here are horrific.

does anyone mind me cutting and pasting some of their experiences as per this thread to put on the fb page ?

Have done a logo for the FB page - could probably be printed as a sign for hospital curtains

I am appalled to read some of these stories, absolutely furious.

Can I make a suggestion that anyone being harassed by a rep who won't take no for an answer - threaten to pull the emergency bell behind your bed, can't imagine they'd relish the idea of several staff members in a cubicle within seconds, hopefully the threat alone would put them off and they'd shuffle out

I don't think they should be banned altogether, I wanted to have photos of DDs after they were born. But hospitals should only allow them in if they follow strict guidelines and ban them if they don't.

I also only provided details to receive the photos and ticked the boxes to not have my details passed on, and didn't receive any junk mail. I wasn't given a pack then, picked one up at the hospital during pregnancy, didn't have to provide any personal data to get it.

I haven't read the full thread, so apologies if this has been covered already, but for those of your who are understandably incandescent about Bounty sending letters to you when your baby has died, you may want to know that Principle 4 of the Data Protection Act 1998 states:

Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.

If you ask the companies to remove the child's data from their records within a reasonable time (eg 14 days) and they do not comply, they are in breach of the Act and can be reported to the information commissioner's office: www.ico.gov.uk

Nigel, did you get my PM?

I had twins and spent two weeks in hospital. The Bounty rep kept 'popping in' nearly every day to see me and the babies and I was too polite to tell her to go away. She was just an inconvenience to me after reading others' experiences on here over the years I think Bounty should not be allowed on the wards.

just saw the fb page pop up on my news feed as a few friends have 'liked' it - great idea for a campaign, I managed to repel the bounty reps after both my DC were born, but saw other mums being given the hard sell, particularly this summer after DD was born.

It's nine years since I had my last child, so I can't say I really remember my experience with Bounty. But the whole idea of the set up sounds just wrong to me and some of the stories on here are truly shocking. I have liked the facebook page and hope the campaign takes off.

Ok, been looking at a few more things.

1. Aspect of taking photographs and the legalities of it. I've looked this up, and "A right to privacy exists in the UK law, as a consequence of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law through the Human Rights Act 1998. Which DOES apply to photography.

The right to privacy is protected by Article 8 of the convention. In the context of photography, it stands at odds to the Article 10 right of freedom of expression.

HOWEVER if someone is taking photos purely for commercial gain then the right of freedom of expression isn't a valid defence.

Next point.
Photos of children can be taken in public places without consent of parents. They can not be taken in a private place without consent of parents. I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying, a hospital is one of those places, where technically under law although its public, its actually generally regarded as a private place rather than a public one due to the nature of activity.

Therefore, if a Bounty Lady takes a photograph of your child without your consent, its challengeable under law.

2. Establishing that hospitals have a duty of care to patients. I've just been on the CQC website to look at what they assess hospitals for and what responsibilities hospitals have.

Safeguarding people
Safeguarding means protecting people?s health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. It is fundamental to creating high-quality health and social care.

So I dragged up their policy and looked at the 'CQC Our Safeguarding Policy'
The bold is mine

2.4 Although there are specific standards related to safeguarding and safety, effective safeguarding also requires compliance with a range of other standards as well. For example:
? robust recruitment and vetting processes for staff
? having enough well trained, competent and supported staff
? providing effective and appropriate treatment
? having systems in place that allow people who use services and their representatives to feedback concerns
? ensuring that people using the service are respected and as fully involved as possible in their care and support.
Compliance with the full range of standards should result in positive outcomes for individuals where the risk of abuse, neglect or harm occurring in the first instance is far less likely to arise.

2.5 Where providers fail to meet the requirements of the law, we have powers to intervene and, if necessary, take action against them. This includes services that are operating without being registered. CQC?s Enforcement Policy describes how we will use our enforcement powers and the principles behind our approach. The Judgement Framework is written for Compliance Inspectors to help them reach judgements about whether a provider or a manager is meeting the essential standards and to decide the regulatory response when they are not. Where we make a judgement of non-compliance with a regulation, we use the Judgement Framework and Enforcement Policy to decide what is appropriate regulatory action.

2.6 While working in partnership with other agencies, CQC will not suspend its own statutory enforcement responsibilities and processes pending the outcome of another process (for example, criminal), where to do so would run counter to the safety and well-being of the people who use the service. In such circumstances, we will aim wherever possible to coordinate actions in order to preserve evidence and avoid impeding each other?s investigations or enforcement action.

Hello... look at this, wellbeing and human rights... so a hospital DOES has a responsibility to effectively safeguard patients. You just need to join the dots up and establish that hospitals are not properly safeguarding a patient's wellbeing (which should include distress to bereaved mothers, mothers who have a sick child or some of the examples of generally fucking insensitive comments on this thread) and their human rights to privacy.

To my mind - Allowing a commercial salesperson on a ward unsupervised is definitely a bit of an issue here. Especially where you have examples of curtains being pulled back and photos taken without consent.

If I'm right, if hospitals are unable to give you answers to a FOIR asking about their policy on Bounty and how they ensure patients are safeguarded, then bingo - issue.

So the more I look at this, the more I'm damn sure that Bounty selling Bed to Bed is highly challengeable through a number of avenues if you keep pushing. Its not good enough for hospitals to merely respond in the following way like they did last year: Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "As a result of the concerns raised by Mr Walters, the company concerned has reviewed the training of their staff." because the responsibility ultimately lies WITH THEM and not Bounty!!!

Being honest I don't think simply doing a petition will work. 100,000 signatories is a LOT. When you look at failed petitions, its easy to see how hard it is to get enough (more midwives petition for example). The only way you'd be able to provoke enough outrage would be to sell it to enough people as the erosion of the NHS in general and the selling patient data to commercial enterprise as being endorsed by the NHS rather than focusing it purely on maternity services and the Bounty lady. You NEED to get men outraged too.

As for how much the NHS makes from Bounty. The newspaper articles from last year said they were paying around £5000 per year for exclusive rights to access patients (Its just over half a million pounds for around a hundred hospitals). Thats not much. If they started being challenged over the legalities of Bounty or forced to put in safeguarding measures at some expense and/or inconvenience, it may force the NHS to reassess their relationship too.

So basically doing anything to be a right PITA to hospitals is worth doing. Even simple complaints cost them money (and they have to record them too, so if complaints are made it means that if for example the CQC start investigating whether patients are being properly safeguarded...)

I'll redraft what I posted yesterday a bit later, when I get a moment. Apologies for yet another marathon post.

I never met the Bounty lady - with DS1 the hospital didn't have it, I don't think, and DS2 was born at home.

These stories are outrageous and some of these reps are potentially committing criminal offences by obtaining personal data by deception. As well as complaining to the hospital, it may well be worth people thinking about actually making a report to the police. If enough people report reps who lie to get personal information, the police may actually take action against individuals.

We have a Bounty lady where I work. I've always thought she's quite nice, however she doesn't sell photos. There is a Tempest lady who does that.

Everyone seems happy to see the Bounty lady and get a pack. We do tell her if there are any rooms she shouldn't go into, but no more than that. So no info is given to her about the woman or baby.

But its true that its odd that she's allowed in to the ward outside of normal visiting. Though I suppose having one person briefly visiting all the women is different to all the women having lots of visitors in the morning when midwives/Drs/paeds/hearing screeners are trying to do checks.

I'm going to lurk in a bay when the Tempest lady is about next week and see how much of a hard sell she gives women.

It doesn't matter how nice she is, she shouldn't be there at all. There is something inherently wrong with giving a salesperson access to patients in hospital.

Red, good point re CQC, maybe someone should complain to them and point to the statement from that PCT that banned Bounty.

Just had a look at Tempest website.

It doesn't really give a lot of information tbh

It does state it operates "in 150 maternity wards nationwide, putting parents at ease straight away. Personable, highly trained and professional, it?s easy to see why we?re UNICEF?s preferred ?baby friendly? photographers".

What the hell does UNICEF's prepared baby friendly photographers actually mean? Anyone know?

With regard to privacy, they say "We respect your privacy too; we?ll never, ever pass your personal details on to a third party without your consent."

So they also pass on details to third parties, but I'm rather clueless about under what circumstances or who these parties might be.

So their website is about as useful as a chocolate teapot in allowing me to make informed decisions about them.

Brilliant.

Updated draft:

I am making a FOI request about the presence and accountability of Bounty Salespeople on hospital wards.

The CQC require hospitals and Trusts to safeguard patients and say
Safeguarding means protecting people?s health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. It is fundamental to creating high-quality health and social care.

I would therefore like to how the Trust ensures proper safeguarding whilst allowing Bounty to operate on their premises:

ACCESS

1. When are Bounty Salespeople allowed on the ward?
2. Is this inside or outside normal visiting hours?
3. Do they sell bed to bed?
4. Are they permitted on the ward unaccompanied and unsupervised by hospital staff?

DATA PROTECTION AND PRIVACY
In light of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 which installs a right to privacy under UK law and duty bounds public bodies to ensure the privacy of people, when they are placed under their care, especially if they are classed as vulnerable:

5. If Bounty Salespeople are permitted a ward, how does the Trust ensure that they do not have any access to private or confidential information especially where part of their job is to collect data of patients for financial gain or work on a commission basis?
6. How does the Trust protect the physical privacy of patients from Bounty?
7. What measures are in place for patients who do not wish to be approached during their stay in hospital?
8. Does the Trust have a formal system to identity these patients to Bounty without revealing ANY personal details or details about their treatment?
9. Has a formal assessment been carried out to assess whether patients' rights being properly protected in the presence of a commercial party?

INFORMED CONSENT FOR PATIENTS
10) Are patients informed about Bounty's commercial interest during ante-natal care so they can make an informed decision about whether they want to engage with a Bounty salesperson if they are admitted to hospital?
11) What procedure, if any, is in place to ensure that ALL patients are made aware that Bounty Salespeople will be on the ward upon their admission?

SALES PRACTICES
12) In light of The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 how does the Trust ensure that Bounty does not pursue Misleading or Aggressive sales practices?

With particular reference to Aggressive commercial practices, the trading regulations state that:
In determining whether a commercial practice uses harassment, coercion or undue influence account shall be taken of?
(a)its timing, location, nature or persistence;
(c)the exploitation by the trader of any specific misfortune or circumstance of such gravity as to impair the consumer?s judgment, of which the trader is aware, to influence the consumer?s decision with regard to the product;
13) How is this ensured in a hospital setting with patients who are a captive audience and who may also be within 24 hours of a general anaesthetic and therefore unable to give informed legal consent, still under the influence of drugs, be in a heightened emotional state, recovering from a traumatic operation, suffering from a lack of sleep following a lengthy labour or otherwise more vulnerable than normal?

With particular reference to Misleading actions
A misleading omission can also occur where a trader fails to identify the commercial intent of a practice, if it is not already apparent from the context.
14) Are these people clearly and easily identifiable as being not part of the hospital staff at all times?
15) How do the Trust ensure that patients do not mistakenly think that Bounty nor any of the companies they represent are in any way affiliated to the hospital or NHS?

TRAINING AND RESPONSIBILITY
16) Who is responsible for Bounty Salespeople on the wards?
17) Are any hospital staff on the ward trained to identify aggressive or misleading sales practices to ensure the protection of patients?
18) Does the Trust train Bounty staff in anyway about sensitivity, respect and privacy of patients?
19) Does the Trust assess Bounty's staff training before any representatives are allowed on the ward?

QUALITY OF INFORMATION
20) How does the Trust ensure that information being provided by Bounty or its representatives or on behalf of commercial organisations is in line with current Department of Health health messages (and/or breastfeeding accreditation where applicable), with particular reference to breastfeeding/weening?
21) Is this information regularly checked for any updates/changes?
22) Are Bounty staff either properly trained to be able to accurately answer, or told not answer, any health related questions that might be raised by patients?

COMPLAINTS
23) How does the Trust deal with any complaints about Bounty staff?
24) How accountable are Bounty held for any breaches of privacy or inappropriate sales practice?

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
25) Does the Trust benefit financially, whether directly or indirectly, from the presence of Bounty representatives?
26) If so, how does the Trust ensure that the best interests of patients are not compromised?

Is that better/worse? Have I missed anything crucial?

"It doesn't matter how nice she is, she shouldn't be there at all"

It's like saying that someone who sells 300%apr loans to vulnerable not-quite-there people does it nicely! so what? if someone rips my confused nan off I don't care if they chatted nicely to her about her cat and her neighbour's fence in the process!!

no matter how "nicely" you do it, you leave your morals at the door in a job like that!

(and I seem happy to see anyone when I'm on the post natal ward, I am too emotional and tired to be my usual suspicious stroppy self , it's only afterwards you think "that was well out of order", I didn't trust my judgements at the time)

Hi Red Toothbrush more great work researching and thinking about this further !

Near the beginning of your new FOI draft it needs to say ...

" I would therefore like to ask how the Trust .... " HTH !

And number 9 ...

" whether patients' rights are being properly protected"

Also wondered if under the complaints section you could somehow hint at some of the offensive and insensitive behaviour MNers have experienced such as making negative comments on a babies appearance, and being insensitive where babies are absent from their mothers in SCBU, or even more sadly where the baby has died.
Clearly they are not appropriately trained to handle such sensitive situations, and nor are they adequately supervised and accompanied by professional staff to prevent such incidences occurring.
Or some of these issues could be further raised under the Training section ?

Juggling, I would but it says on whatdotheyknow to

Please put in your request only what is needed so that someone can easily identify what information you are asking for. Please do not include any of the following:

<span class="italic">* arguments about your cause</span>
<span class="italic">* statements that could defame or insult others</span>
<span class="italic">* questions or requests for comment rather than for specific information</span>

If you include extraneous material, we may have to remove your request to avoid problems with libel law, which is a pain for both you and us.

Its probably pushing it on 13 as it is, but I think its just about ok to leave in, as its in context with the quote immediately above it. If I put too many examples in, they might zap the request. But I may have to have another look at that question.

I was thinking of changing 23) to How does the Trust deal with any complaints about Bounty staff, since they are not directly employed by the Trust? by way of suggesting that Bounty staff are not subject to the same level of professional conduct and accountability as trust staff (and therefore can't be disciplined for it), but I could potentially put in another question alone the lines of How do you ensure that Bounty Staff adhere to the same level of professional conduct as staff employed directly by the Trust?

Looking and comparing the list of Bounty Hospitals with the list of hospitals with BFI accreditation is an interesting exercise (rewind to page 18 of the thread and document FrillyMilly posted about the reasons why NHS North Lancashire removed Bounty packs from Black Fylde and Blackpool Fylde and Wyre NHS Foundation Hospital Trust and were trying to removed them from Royal Lancaster Infirmary.)

If Bounty's list is up to date theres 21 hospitals which are BFI accredited but still seem to have Bounty Services despite the concerns of NHS North Lancashire.

Barnsley Hospital, Barnsley
Calderdale Royal Hospital, Halifax
Chesterfield & North Derbyshire Royal Hospital, Chesterfield
James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough
Nevill Hall Hospital, Abergavenny
Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil
Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan
Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley
Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, Exeter
Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital, Belfast
Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford
Russell Hall Hospital, Dudley
Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health, Edinburgh
St Mary?s Hospital for Women & Children, Manchester
St Michael?s Hospital, Bristol
Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport
The Royal Derby Hospital, Derby
University College London Hospital, London
West Middlesex University Hospital, Isleworth
Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester
Yeovil Women?s Hospital, Yeovil