Campaign to end Bounty sales reps' access to maternity wards - please read and share

[JustineMumsnet]

Evening all,

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to fill in our survey on Bounty and share your stories - from the initial idea onwards, this really is a campaign that has been prompted by your concerns, as posted on Mumsnet.

The survey showed that a very large majority (82%) felt it was unacceptable for Bounty sales reps to be on hospital wards, as well as highlighting a number of other concerns about Bounty reps' selling practices, so we're calling on government to end this kind of direct selling/data collecting on NHS wards. See more here.

It's clear, from the survey results, that, even after Bounty updated its code of conduct (these results only include users who gave birth from May 2012 - the full results containing prior data are here) its practices leave a lot to be desired, and that Mumsnet users feel very strongly that the maternity ward is no place for a hard sell, so we're really hoping that government will listen to us.

Here's how you can help...

Please sign the petition

If you're on Twitter please tweet your support for the campaign with the hashtag #bountymutiny and the following link:

tiny.mn/1bsnpNw

If you're on Facebook then please like campaign page our campaign page (there's a FB link to click at the top on the left).

If you're on Google+, well, you'll know what to do.

We'll, of course, keep you posted here about the campaign and any developments. Thanks to everyone for their stories, honesty and input. Here's hoping we can make a difference!

I know you are not allowed to disagree with the mumsnet bullies and you will probably tell me to RTFT but crazywithtwins made me think 'Thank The Lord for some common sense' www.crazywithtwins.com/2013/06/30/why-im-against-the-bounty-mutiny/

IME Bounty people just left a bag of things...no hard sell or contact.I quite liked it have no idea what hoo ha about...on the other hand...Syria,Child Poverty etc would get my attention.,,,,stop mooing

I don't see any bullies here - just women on a mission !

And spot on too - just sticking up for ours and others basic human rights - to give birth, and recover from birth in a peaceful, conducive, and supportive environment.

Oh look, another first time poster. Bounty staff on a mission!

Yeh, funny I've never seen you on any of the social justice threads Doobydoo - such as the Save the Children campaign against peddlers of artificial baby milk in the third world where problems with clean water etc. mean breastfeeding is imperative for the health of many babies. The expense of buying the formula is also economically crippling for many families, but difficult to go back to breastfeeding once the (heavily influenced) decision to FF has been made. You did mention child poverty ?

Beyondthelimits - do you mean me? I haven't posted before because firstly I have not felt strongly enough on other subjects to and secondly I suspected that if I disagreed I would be shot down in flames. This is not a forum that allows you to have an alternative view. I do like the site though. FYI I work in a shop and was very glad of the samples and vouchers both times. I realised that they would use my info, but I joined willingly while pregnant (along with boots club, tesco club and cow and gate).

Do you think that I'm the type to not care about other things? I take the attitude that you start with the small things and work you way up onto other connected issues. The starting point changes the culture that then allows the bigger things to happen more easily. Just because its not the biggest issue does not make it less important.

Got to admit I am starting to find the arguments against this campaign amusing, and incredibly weak.

*There are other issues that are more important so we should use our efforts on these
*You can just say no; its your fault if you don't - you've just pushed a baby out your fanny, so you can do anything. I did despite nearly dying. (Code for look how amazing I am and how weak you are - which was the contents of that blog)
*Its a service that 90% of women love, how dare you criticise it there must be something wrong with you if you aren't part of the majority
*Mumsnet have a vendetta and they are winding up women into some sort of hysterical reaction which is totally unjustified (Bullies attack the person, not the argument btw)
*Bounty are a beloved institution that have been around for years without any problems
*New mums love all their freebies and you'll be depriving them, especially the poor mums
*Bounty have a code of conduct and its just a few rogue reps that are spoiling it for the rest of us
*The NHS need the money and if you don't support Bounty you aren't supporting your local midwives
*But we don't get any complaints

If people have a valid argument and criticism they should voice it and shouldn't be tried to be silenced.

And no I won't say RTFT. (However you could have read the post above yours though )

Sorry - forgot better term "developing world" or even better "majority world" You'll have to forgive me I hope - I've taken an interest in these issues for over thirty years - since I was in "Third world first" at Uni.
Sadly not enough has changed in the ensuing years

Any update MNHQ on our support for that campaign too ?!

Have been an active member of mumsnet for approx 8 years.Gave up posting much re the way issues in Syria were handled and the fact that mumsnet has changed so much over the years and not really for the best.Still some great suppoet but seems to be many irritating/bolshy rather humourless people.

I read that crazywithtwins blog, to think some more. And there are a couple of posts saying, "If you're unhappy with Tescos, you just complain about the individual staff member, not try to affect the whole company."

So I thought about that.

And it's actually not true.

Tescos, and all retailers, are bound by laws to protect the public, and when an individual member of staff stuffs up, it's still the company which is prosecuted or fined.

For example, this Trading Standards info sheet makes clear it wrt to shelf prices not matching till prices that "You must never rely on the customer to be your 'quality assurance' to identify an incorrect price by their being overcharged. This may result in legal proceedings, even though you may charge the lower price."

That's for a transaction the customer would have no difficulty declining - they could simply abandon the wrongly priced item at the till. They could also refuse to leave the premises until they'd seen the manager to complain. So overall a much stronger position than someone in a hospital bed trying to make a salesperson go away, and where it's not clear who/where the person to complain to is.

Yet the customer in the shop is protected by pricing laws, and the onus is on the retailer to police its own behaviour.

And I think Bounty - and the hospitals - are actually bound by the law, as outlined several places above. There just haven't been prosecutions - yet. It would be nice if Bounty took pro-active responsibility before that happens. (Though as this issue has recurred over many years, I'm not holding my breath.)

standing ovation for ParsingFancy

Quite, quite.

Personally I find there's still much humour to be found on MN - just not so much on the campaign threads, where people have the emotional range to be serious too

Interesting you've been around for 8 years Dooby - sorry I missed you before

Mumoftwo, I mentioned you being a first time poster because I had mentioned the large amounts of first time posters on this thread two posts before yours.
I have no issue hearing reasons why you (or anyone else!) think Bounty's current practices are okay, but based on my life experience, I am simply probably going to disagree.
And as Red has put much clearer than I could, the same arguments are being repeated, over and over again by people who ignore the lists of issues and pages of debate, and IMO they just aren't good enough.

I read the link that RedToothBrush posted, and there's something there that made me think. And that's the "employee" status. The Bounty lady is the employee of Bounty, not the hospital. So, if there's a problem with an individual Bounty employee, as that link mentions, what happens then? Can the hospital insist that the Bounty person (who is not their employee) be barred from the maternity unit on their say-so, or does the Bounty/NHS contract mean that it's Bounty who decide who they put on to the ward to fulfill their contract?

I can well imagine that if a Bounty employee could be swiftly booted off the ward, then Bounty will lose the opportunity for data-gathering in the interim while they recruit and train a replacement.

Does anyone have any idea of what a contract between Bounty and an NHS hospital says?

(As an aside: the caterers/cleaning contracts in NHS hospitals are often outsourced, but caterers/cleaners don't have patient contact. So there's no comparison.)

No idea what contracts say. I think someone tried to find out in a FOI request a while ago, but it was refused.

The best information on this employee status I can find is from the FOI Requests I made. They were interesting in terms of who was deemed responsible for a Bounty Rep whilst they were on the ward for each of the 5 Trusts.

I got the impression it wasn't entirely as clear cut as you would think and was quite complex.

15) Who is responsible for Bounty Salespeople/Representatives on the wards?

a) Their employers
b) Bounty are responsible for their representatives on the ward, however, the ward sister is responsible for the women on the ward. If a problem is identified, the ward sister would contact a senior midwifery manager within the Trust who would contact the Bounty manager.
Bounty keep the Trust fully indemnified against any liability incurred as a result of the distribution of the Bounty Services pursuant to the agreement and Bounty take out the necessary Public Liability Insurance in respect of any valid claim in respect of any one incident.

c) Bounty area manager and ward manager/coordinator.
d) Ward Managers are responsible in part for all visitors to the ward but Bounty staff are answerable to their line management. Regular monitoring of the Bounty Service is undertaken.
e) Head of Midwifery / General Manager

I think this is perhaps part of the problem going on; as the hospital does not have direct management it makes it more difficult to take action against a Bounty rep, compared to their own staff under similar circumstances. They can't just do a disciplinary and if they have to go back to Bounty with any problems it makes the process rather more difficult (and probably something of a nuisance).

23) How do you ensure that Bounty staff adhere to the same level of professional conduct as staff employed directly by the Trust?

a) The Bounty staff are not employed by the Trust but by Bounty who will be responsible for the conduct of the staff.

b) Contract is in place which outlines standards expected. Through observation and monitoring of Bounty staff whilst they are working on the ward and from feedback from patients and surveys of patient experience.

c) Regular meetings with service providers and feedback from the ward. Bounty have a Code of Conduct.
d) See answer to question 17.
e) They follow the Trust guidelines and any professional misconduct reported would be investigated.

However, there seems there are potential real problem here over training and overseeing Bounty staff, because hospitals don't have any say in how they are trained nor did any of them assess the training that Bounty staff got.

Plus hospital staff are not actually trained to recognise or spot any unfair/aggressive sales practices (Note here none of the hospitals had done a formal review of the risk of a commercial party on a maternity ward, or didn't actually understand what a sales practice even was on this question) so how staff would actually be able to observe and report any such failings, is difficult to understand. To put it mildly.

When asked directly about accountability, the Trusts were all pretty shit in their responses tbh.

24) How accountable are Bounty held for any breaches of privacy or inappropriate sales practice?

a) Bounty are accountable for their employees.

b) Bounty do not sell items in the Trust; only give out free Bounty sample packs. The contract states that Bounty will work in strict accordance with the Data Protection Act to mail offers and product information to mothers who have expressed a wish to receive such mailings
c) They have a Code of Conduct and adhere to hospital policy.

d) This event has not occurred within this Trust although our normal procedures with providers would be followed. Any breaches of contract or terms of service provision would be addressed.
e) Totally accountable

Bottomline, as far as I see it, is the accountability that should be there (and is much more with a direct employee) just doesn't appear to there as it should be and the hospitals certainly didn't seem willing (able?) to answer questions on this properly. There seemed to be rather a lot of buck passing going on, and saying "this isn't our responsibility, this is Bounty's".

Maybe other people will read these answers rather differently, or think I'm being harsh here, but I just don't see proper procedures in place here.

I'll leave it up to others to make up their mind on this one, I think.

a) Western Sussex b) Gloucestershire (which has no photographic contact with Bounty) c) South Manchester d) Central Manchester
e) Western Suffolk

Oh goody, it's busybutterfly round 2! (look her up for a bit of fun)

Sp2013, this is not a mumsnet thing, it started in the BMJ and mumsnet, along with many other companies and doctors joined the campaign. I've recently written for NCT on the subject.

Have you read what some women have been through? Did you see the lady in Daybreak who was talking to the pediatrician in a private room about her new baby they suspected had meningitis and the Bounty lady barged in without knocking? Did you read the gp in the BMJ who thought it was the hearing screen because she didn't introduce herself?

You say the photographic service would cost more elsewhere? Maybe in some studios but many do free photography and just the cost to develop that it would cost to print your own. NCT have a partnership for free photography and print.

Doody, I'm not a fairy, I am big enough to deal with more than one issue at a time. I admin for the official nestle boycott, write for NCT, joining the campaign for mums to know their midwife, currently researching the issue of baby wipes causing damage to drains, knitting squares, as well as the Bounty issue... All whilst studying, doulaing and somewhere fitting in four kids, a 29 weeker baby, pta and a disability! I doubt I'm even unique here, that's what I love about mumsnet! Yes it's no nonsense here, but that's because it's not all talk, people put their actual time and effort into things and the only tiring thing is people coming on outraged who don't know wtf they're talking about. It's not differing opinions, that is one thing, it's the total ignorance. If you've genuinely been around 8 years (6 here I believe) then you'd know that. And another thing RTFT! Your experience ISN'T the norm!

Mumof2, like I say, opposing opinions are allowed, ignorance and willful ignorance generally isn't tolerated.

Suffolk, it still gives them some backing to have them in hospital, a card in reception with all the other local bumf is enough, people can collect from Argos and put the emphasis for it where it should be - in a shop!

Have looked at the crazywithtwins link ....

Two things .... I notice at the end she specifically asks for only positive comments - that makes me think she may have some link with Bounty/ an agenda other than just as a mother.

And 2 - one of the comments says that "she was the only friendly professional face I saw" Well, that's what needs to change isn't it ?
Women on the post-natal wards need the opportunity to talk about their experience and how they feel and how things are going with a member of staff or excellent volunteer who is there for that purpose. It shouldn't be left to a chance encounter with a busy and un-trained (regarding supportive care) Bounty lady with a completely different commercial agenda.

Just managed to read the link. I'm guessing her children are quite a bit older.

I can't get over her using CHOOSING to go into a cake shop as an analogy that's more like a baker coming onto the cancer ward where everyone is on a diet ( ) and telling you you need one of these donuts because the government said they're good for you... actually, remind you of anyone?

I had a positive experience of the bounty rep. I thought she was lovely and although the over use of curtains in mat wards means that everyone inc her ignored them she was really polite when I said it wasn't convenient she asked if she could come back, I said yes and she had no problem when se had to come back about 4times before it was convenient.
I also saw the bounty rep getting someone's meal for her as she wasn't able and the staff were all too busy!

What on earth is the 'overuse of curtains'? They're there to give you privacy if you want it. How dare anyone not directly involved in your care decide they have the authority ignore them?

wen i had my dcs ,the bounty rep was really nice no bother etc. each to there own i suppose.

I hope everyone who says "each to their own" has no objections to door-to-door salesmen knocking on their front doors at bathtime, or sales calls at 11pm?