Bounty Mutiny campaign: we're off to meet the Minister for Health...

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Hopefully most of you will know about Mumsnet's Bounty Mutiny campaign, which asks for commercial sales reps to be kept off hospital maternity wards.

We just wanted to let you know that a meeting has been arranged between Justine and Dr Daniel Poulter, Conservative MP and minister for the relevant part of the Department of Health.

Dr Poulter has expressed concern about this issue in the past, saying in a letter to NHS Trusts,

"I am asking you to review your practices for allowing representatives from private companies on maternity wards to assure yourselves that you are maintaining women’s dignity and respect shortly after the birth of a baby when they can be tired and vulnerable."

So we're looking forward to discussing the campaign with him and seeing what he has to say. We'll update you here to let you know how it went.

Who do you get your maternity forms from? The important ones you need for maternity/paternity leave?

This annoys me , I have just given birth to twins and the bounty lady was lovely. I love my free samples and am quite happy to get emailed offers from company's.

soon well as long as you are happy, we should probably ignore all those people whose privacy has been violated and who are receiving emails 5 years after their children where stillborn. Coz free samples trumps dignity every day of the week...

I don't think anyone is trying to infringe on your right to free samples and being spammed by marketing, SoonToBeSix. If Bounty want to set up in the cafe area of every hospital in the country to give out free samples, more power to their elbow. Or in shopping centres. Or petrol stations. Or any of the gazillion other places where they can interact with members of the public, rather than inpatients in a hospital ward.

The samples are pathetic though SoonToBe - a tiny pot of sudocrem and a few vouchers for "weaning" products IIRC. A newborn nappy if you're lucky ? Totally crap IMHO

Great, you had a Bounty lady who was capable of being friendly to you with your new baby. But a visit from a family member or friend would probably have been just as nice, no? But perhaps it was outside visiting hours?

And yes, as IceBeing says we all need to think about other people's experiences with Bounty, and not just our own.

I am so sorry to hear that, NicNac. I hope she had the decency to apologise to you. Her behaviour was unspeakable.

Congratulations on your pregnancy redtoothbrush

They do not need to be on the wards. Full stop, the end.

I vaguely remember reading that my local trust (gwent) has done the recommended investigation and decided bounty are fine and can stay.

Gosh niknak, just saw your second post :(

I am so so sorry for your lost and then fuming that you had shit from this company when things were hard enough x

I want to know who benefits financially from Bounty. There must be some backhander going on or they surely would have been banned long ago.

Mumsnet can you ask please and report back?

Who do you get your maternity forms from? The important ones you need for maternity/paternity leave?

I got mine from the GP or midwife (can't recall which) at one of the antenatal appointments. CB form could easily be given at the same time.

mini I know what you mean, but my first though was 'well Bounty do duh'

Re: child benefit forms in both France and Luxembourg these are handed out when your pregnancy is confirmed by your GP or OB GYN. In order to be eligible for some parts of child benefit you have to attend a set number of medical checks during your pregnancy, and the forms are stamped by the HCPs who see you for these checks. Sounds overbearing but it is to ensure babies are checked regularly for in utero issues.

But that's irrelevant. I don't see why GPs and mws can't hand out these forms during pregnancy in the UK and not leave it to Bounty.

I would also be interested in seeing who benefits from Bounty financially. Who is paying money to whom and who are the shareholders / board members? Does anyone have access to that kind of information?

NikNak your posts have bought tears to my eye - I can't believe the extra, unnecessary pain and humiliation that was heaped on you at such a terrible time - truly shocking. My father died suddenly in his early fifties and I spent a lot of time (years) stopping mail and marketing with his name on it being inflicted on my mother. For years after his death she would get herself together after a sleepless night, on her own, and come downstairs to find some marketing letter from the Halifax or someone offering him a loan (the stress of debt was a contributory factor to his heart attack), or, even worse, a phone call from some company trying to sell him something. She described it exactly as you did each time - a knife through the heart. It did eventually stop (after I sent death certificates to every company who tried to contact him). I used all the preference services but they made little difference, at the time.

Terrible.

Out of interest, I have 3 dc. With the first I was in hospital for 5 days but never saw a Bounty rep - bag just turned up on my bed - I guess because I was up in special care a lot with the baby. The second and third time I left in a matter of hours before they arrived in the morning. On all 3 occasions I managed to claim CB quite easily after being given the forms when registering the births. In fact it wasn't until this campaign that I realized Bounty tried to use giving out the forms as justification for their terrible intrusions.

Who owns Bounty

Since 2011

www.equistonepe.com/investments/uk-investments

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equistone_Partners_Europe

Bounty pay the hospitals to be allowed to go into the wards, minipie. If you have a look at a few of my posts above, you'll see links to various board papers and letters where the amounts are specified. It isn't a huge sum in the budget of million-pound hospitals, to be honest, but this is why frankly they cannot be allowed to assess for themselves whether the Bounty services are appropriate for their patients.

Bounty are in turn paid by HMRC to distribute the CB form.

Thank you, investment funds then managed by Barclays own Bounty. I wonder who the investors are, and if not individuals then who are the shareholders/directors of the investors. I assume it must be quite a successful company for investment funds to buy it at that price...

From Equistone's website: The Deal

In June 2009, Equistone Partners Europe backed the management buy-out of Bounty.

Bounty is one of the UK's leading media owners and is best known for its Bounty sampling packs, which are received by 95% of new mothers in the UK. Since the 1960s the business has been both supporting parents and working with health and childcare professionals.

Bounty complements its physical presence with www.bounty.com, one of the UK's most viewed parenting websites which provides information, support and products for young families and 2.5 million Bounty parenting club members across the UK.

Equistone viewed the strong track record of the business, the experience and credentials of the management team, and the robust business model as highly attractive.

The Future

Equistone's investment will support the further growth of the business enabling Bounty to develop and extend its proposition and backing to new mothers in the UK.

I have emailed with my experiences - here's a copy of my email here, just because I want their awful practices exposed.

"My bad experience was at Salford Royal in July 2011. I had given birth about four hours previously. My birth had lasted over 24 hours and had been very physically traumatic (failed pain relief, retained placenta requiring intervention, over an hour of stitching, a substantial haemorrhage). I was sleep deprived, very distressed, in pain and felt very vulnerable.

The bounty rep opened my closed curtains as I was trying (and failing!) to breastfeed, so I was partially undressed and embarrassed. She didn't introduce herself as being from bounty, but greeted me by name and told me that she was there to 'confirm my details'. I was not made aware she was a sales rep at any stage - she had the appearance and manner of a member of clinical staff, and clearly already knew who I was (my name at least). I gave my details without full understanding or consent of what I was doing because of her misleading lack of information.

She told me that she needed to take some photographs of my daughter for 'security reasons'. After taking photos, she then tried to sell them to me. I was rather baffled and asked why I would want to buy copies of security photos. She told me that the photos would be binned if I didn't buy them and that most mothers wanted their child's first special photographs. I felt pressured and emotionally blackmailed to buy the photos - I continued to refuse, but felt quite distressed and overwhelmed. Thankfully, a member of staff (a real one, not a pretend one!) arrived to care for me and the bounty woman left.

I would like to add my wholehearted agreement to this campaign and I am happy to have my experience passed on to any interested parties. I would like to add that for my second birth, a Bolton Royal, I stated on my birth plan that I did not want bounty to visit me and this was respected. However, I do not feel that putting the onus on women to refuse sales reps is adequate. My grandfather recently had hip surgery and he didn't have to write 'no sales reps to visit' on his forms - why should I?"

I'm so sorry for the women who have lost children who still are bombarded with distressing communications. I really hope that women in the future are protected from their unfair and intrusive practices.

Thanks RedToothBrush

So, hang on, let me get this straight. HMRC pay Bounty to distribute a form to people, because they don't trust them to get the form themselves from a PO or online, or indeed that they will be given it by the other people they must pay to distribute it, namely the Registrars when they register the birth a few weeks later once they have had time to recover from the birth, for a Benefit that they probably won't get anyway now because they earn too much.

Bonkers.

Why doesn't the DVLA pay Bounty to come and give me my Road Tax form at my GPs while I am having a smear test I wonder?

Of the Passport Office to give me their forms that I can easily get myself online or in a PO when I am having a root canal done at the dentist?

I can't believe how such an inappropriate practice has been allowed to continue for so long.

Completely unconvinced that this will have any effect at all. Trusts will give the same puff answers to any questions and monitoring will have no real effect.

The central issue of using HCPs as proxy agents as detailed by Minipie appears not to have been addressed. There are too many fiscal benefits to the NHS for this practice to be outlawed and most MWs appear to be in complete ignorance regarding their own complicity with this system.

Not impressed.

Hello

We've published some further info on how to complain to your hospital. If you'd like to let your hospital know about your experience, and ask them to reconsider their relationship with Bounty, here's how.