MNHQ here: Bounty Mutiny (get Bounty and commercial reps off wards) - UPDATE

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Thought some of you would be pleased to hear that as the petition to ban commercial reps started by Lauren Harris has passed 10k signatures, the government had to provide a response.

In it, they praise Ipswich hospital for introducing:

'a system where mothers are only approached by a commercial representative if they indicate that this is something that they would like. Mothers can show their preference by placing a card on their bedside table. This is a good example of how Trusts can put processes in place to give new mothers clear control over their interaction with commercial representatives.'

They go on to say:

'The Government is considering how to clarify guidance, so that that the interaction between commercial representatives and new mothers on NHS wards is consistently more positive across the UK.'

So, a small step but hopefully a good one. For the GDPR mavens among you there's also some commentary on that issue in the response on the petition page (please let us know what you think!)

Please do sign the petition if you feel strongly about this - every signature demonstrates the strength of feeling on the issue, and if the petition reaches 100k it will be debated in Parliament.

If you've already signed, you could:

1. write to the hospital where you had your baby (or the hospital where you will be having your baby, or would have your baby at if you had a hospital birth). Bring the response to their attention (they may not be aware of the petition), and point out that the Government has clearly indicated hospitals should have this sort of opt IN system and that other mothers should be left alone.

2. Tweet/share a Facebook post to East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (@ESNEFT on Twitter) to commend Ipswich hospital on its policy, and tag in your local hospital trust asking them to do the same.

3. Tweet/share a Facebook post with the Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) asking them to prioritise new guidance for trusts on this issue.

If you have any ideas for other useful actions to take please add them here!

Thanks
MNHQ

Firsttime you sound far too biased to be genuine 😂
I haven't been personally scarred by any experience with a bounty rep but I do know that the first time I encountered one, I had no idea who she was, I thought she was hospital staff and that her coming by was part of the procedure of having a baby in an NHS hospital. Why would I have thought otherwise? There I was, exhausted on my hospital bed in a strange environment and someone in a uniform swoops in through the curtain with the air of power and certainty that only someone with authority performing their routine job would possess....sounds like a con woman to me. It's unthinkable that salespeople would be touting their wares in hospital ward and being ambiguous about it to boot.
It's unethical as well as an invasion on privacy and actually, personal dignity having read other people's stories here.

I think they just jump on the band wagon and make it out to be worse than it is

Yeah, a dead baby and a rude Bounty woman with no boundaries, I'm definitely making it sound worse than it was.
Sod off Bounty. Leave people in maternity wards alone.

Now I haven’t had a “bad” experience with a bounty rep (I blame the midwives for my rough times) and I have have two births in two different hospitals. The experiences at each could not have been more different. My first I was on a ward with 8 other women and their screaming babies, not a single thing from my birth plan was adhered to, they refused to listen to me and I actually had one midwife tell me I was a neurotic control freak. And that was probably why I “couldn’t breastfeed” reeling from that and desperately wanting to get out of there I was mid panic attack when my husband strolled in followed by the bounty lady. I was the first bed on the ward so she saw we were there first and told me we “needed” these photos as our first memories. Plus the bounty pack which was lauded as “full of amazing freebies” (it wasn’t!) I ended up having the photos with hubby in them, not me, because I felt so rubbish. Then we felt obliged to pay £200 for them.
We then went to pixi foto where we had a much better deal and better pics at 4 weeks than the bounty woman took. We don’t actually know where the bounty pic usb is....
My second I knew about bounty but had a private room (serious pnd with my first combined with a baby who’s nappy was FULL of blood and was being tested for leukaemia, blood disorder and others) again in waltzes the bounty rep(who I had forgotten about) and proceeds to snap pics of hubby and newborn. Again we were pushed to pay £200 that we didn’t have for the photos)
They were both nice ladies and I didn’t really have an issue with them, but I can totally see how it could negatively impact someone to have them say/do something stupid at the wrong moment. Signed!

Oh I think Firsttimemumma89 is real. I've seen the like on facebook. If the number in the name refers to her own birth year, it might actually be the same person!

I was sure someone with so little empathy for women who'd had a seriously traumatic time must surely be a troll! Not quite sure how you can say that people are making it sound worse than it was if we're talking about seriously unwell babies or even those who had passed away.

I'm not traumatised but I very strongly resented the intrusion when I was trying to recover from a difficult birth and deal with the many physical issues I was left with. On principle, anyway, private companies shouldn't be allowed to pay their way into the NHS to get people's details and money.

Yep the girl I knew who was defending bounty seemed to have had a breezy birth and no concept that anyone else might have gone through hell. She and another girl talked about how they had loved to show off their babies & get freebies. When I challenged her (with anti bounty links!) she moaned that a few people just wanted to spoil it for everyone else and that it's not hard to ask them to leave!

It was only when one of her ante natal friends popped up with a truly bad birth story & subsequently saud bounty were intrusive whilst she couldn't fend them off that this girl seemed to go quiet.

I’m sure there are some non pushy double glazing salespersons but I still don’t want them coming in to see my while I’m sitting in my pyjamas.

I wonder if anyone has spoken to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) about this? It's certainly within their remit to comment on issues which directly affect newly-delivered women in hospital.

Signed!

I didn't have a problem with someone coming to take photos of DDs, and the Bounty pack with samples, vouchers and CB form was given to me at the hospital before I had DDs each time. In fact I wasn't even aware of Bounty being a thing until reading about it on MN.

However, having read a lot of other people's experiences, it sounds like some Bounty reps' practices are pretty shocking and unethical, if not downright deception! And why should recently delivered women be sold to in this way at all? Why do hospitals give these people access? Particularly now, no-one needs photos taking, nearly everyone has a decent camera on their phone at least. And particularly now after GDPR. So I agree with the aims of the campaign and will be signing the petition.

Fightthebear it was as if I’d signed up overnight for every “mum” type catalogue going.

I was really hoping that gdpr makes it a lot harder for data collection companies to poach.

I've signed and think the bounty reps should be nowhere near mat wards. I told them to go away or forged details on forms when they came round, they weren't that pushy but you're vulnerable and they have no business being there.
Also their website is appalling! Just been reading the page on VBAC and they say Having a VBAC carries with it the same risks or disadvantages of a normal birth including tearing of the perineum, bruising after birth and the leaking of urine from the vagina whilst recovering post-birth.
FFS Bounty, women do not commonly leak urine from the vagina after birth!
The midwives have something to answer for, they make out like it's normal to take the pack. I hate bounty but ended up carrying away a folder of crap after a recent midwife appointment. It just seems easier to take it, but there's nothing of value in there at all.
I'm not hopeful about getting bounty reps out of hospitals though, the way the Tories and Brexit are going soon those of us without private health insurance will be forced to watch ads from our hospital beds!

When I had my baby at the end of August we had some on come round and ask if we wanted to see the rep for photos. Anyone who said no, said no and weren't bothered.

I said yes and the photos wete lovely and so was the rep! Well worth the money for the big pack. £200. But my baby was 3 days old.. might have been a different story if she had come charging in early in the morning after I'd given birth at 1am!

As for drawing back curtains my hospital had a policy where they asked you not to close your curtain unless you were feeding.. and obviously if you were being examined or seeing a member of staff.

Here's the HuffPo article: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nhs-has-earned-thousands-by-giving-a-private-company-access-to-new-mothers-on-maternity-wards_uk_5bd18bdee4b0d38b5880467d

Interesting reading - according to the trusts who responded to Freedom of Information requests, the NHS hospital trusts receive between 80p and £1.50 per woman seen by Bounty reps.

Do the reps just approach the women randomly, or does the NHS actually provide them with some information (for example name, DOB)?

I’m 100% against Bounty being anywhere near maternity wards and agree with PP who say that an opt in/out system just isn’t enough as it legitimises this frankly insane and exploitative practice. But I’m really curious whether the NHS does provide bounty with any info or they just roam.

If they do literally sell private information about their patients to Bounty without an explicit opt in that’s absolutely disgusting and when the time comes for me to require maternity services I’ll be writing a formal complaint.

Signed! I had a textbook birth and a healthy baby, but I didn't want anything to do with Bounty because I like to keep pretty strict control over where my personal details end up.

They poked through my curtains twice, once when I was breastfeeding, and told me that they had my child benefit form. I told them that I'd sort it out myself. I heard them lying to the patient in the next cubicle though, saying that she needed her details for the child benefit form. I was shocked at how intrusive the questions were (including what's her income, her partner's income, etc). It also pisses me off that some Trusts give Bounty reps free parking, when patients, nurses and other staff have to pay.

They poked through my curtains twice, once when I was breastfeeding

That is horrifying. I cannot believe a salesperson is allowed to invade a naked woman’s privacy to flog her stuff. I swear to god if that happened to me I’d shout at the top of my voice for her to get away from me and tell the midwives there’s a non medical professional being a peeping tom against my consent. It says a lot about how we treat women imo. You don’t see reps for male sanitary wear popping into urology wards after a urological operation trying to flog stuff under the guise of ‘free samples’ and opening curtains while the patient is sat having a bed bath or with their dicks visible.

I am so glad MN is bringing attention to this horrible, sleazy, exploitative practice. The fact they try and sell expensive photos to women who might be drowsy or exhausted or high on painkillers at a time when they’ve just brought a child into the world (expensive!) is pure exploitation.

Petition signed.

Also signed. Had a bounty rep poking around our maternity ward, when I was exhausted after an emergency c-section. I also want to know what personal data is provided to Bounty Reps by NHS Trusts and how they justify it in light of the GDPR.

Interestingly, Emma's Diary has just been fined £140k by the ICO for illegally collecting and selling personal information about new mums in 2017.

No NHS or Bounty here, I can’t believe this is allowed to happen! Why can’t the company put together a catalogue with local rep’s details and price listings to get put in your maternity folder with all the other advertising shit? This is predatory.

How are Trading Standards not involved in investigating Bounty's predatory sales practices (or the hospitals who permit commercial reps into private recovery areas or wards outside of visitor hours?).

Serious question - how has this not been raised and stamped out from a rogue trader POV?

Is it just because they're preying on a particularly vulnerable female demographic at a life-changing/stressful time so not enough people have complained..?

Bounty's argument every time is that they have a very low level of complaints, so yes, because post-natal women don't get around to complaining, they argue that it's totally fine.

I've only seen them once out of 3 stays on the postnatal ward, but I have to admit they weren't that annoying so I never got around to complaining and it seems a bit late now to do it.