NOW CLOSED: Have you given birth in a UK NHS Hospital in the last year or so? Please complete a short survey for MNHQ....

[AnnMumsnet]

We want to know what all MNers think about Bounty reps on NHS Wards.

If you are a UK Mumsnetter who has given birth in a UK NHS hospital in the last couple of years - whether or not you had contact with a Bounty Rep post-natally - please complete this short survey.

This survey has already been sent to the MN Research Panel - please only do the survey once.

When answering, please think about the most recent birth you have experienced in a UK NHS hospital.

Everyone who completes the survey and adds their details at the end will be entered into a prize draw, in which one Mumsnetter will win a £50 Amazon voucher .

Click here to complete the survey

Thanks, MNHQ

Madwoman, that is so heartbreaking. So sorry for you and your baby.

Too many stories here of reps just not thinking. I know a lot of them will have been chipper young twenty something's with not much life experience, but surely to God someone could help them to realise that all sorts of births and traumas will be going on on these wards.

Also equally annoying was the tv lady who would not accept my no thanks comments. She would pop in each am and flick its stupid screen around. One day I just said, we are going through some fairly difficult days here, the last thing I want when I get a few mins peace, is to watch banal tv. She actually replied that other people found the telly a good distraction!!

I wish I'd been on MN then and could have told her what to do with her telly! Patronising cow.

Madwoman, so sorry for you loss...hope something came of your complaint. x

The rep I saw when I was in with DS was rather nice, she wasn't pushy with me or any of the other mums...still don't like the idea of a private company swooping in on new mums.

Hmm, remembering now that the Bounty lady came round in a white tunic - like a beautician's tunic - but I knew to refuse her because I was in bed five and had watched her go round the others and heard the prices too.

At our hospital the mws give out the packs though, both ante- and post-natal. I'm not sure whether that's better or worse.

Sorry for your loss madwoman, what an awful intrusion Bounty pose, especially to grieving mothers like yourself, apalling tatics

I think giving birth is a private special time in a womans life that shouldn't be disturbed by lunatics with bounty badges selling cheap shit
My pfb photo from them wasn't the best and quite frankly it was all rushed and pressured into it.

Some of the stories on here are shocking
I've done the survey. Thanks MNHQ for tackling this.

done. Despite e mails I am STILL on their mailing list!

Ooops, have filled in, but said it was first DC when it was for my second, at St James's in Leeds. Could you change it MNHQ?
I was feeling very vulnerable after having DD; had had AND in pregnancy, had to opt for an elective section due to a load of other circumstances, had inco issues after catheter removal and epidural and felt very vulnerable indeed. She sort of breezed in, I had no idea until afterwards that she was from Bounty; I thought it was a complimentary service laid on by the hospital as this is what she had me believe. She tols me she meeded to use a flash to get baby to open her eyes, then probably caused temporary blindness in DD with the forcefulness of the aforementioned flash. The photos were utter shit; a startled baby, touched up prints to the point that they looked like a waxwork model of DD. We didn't get them, needless to say! Having seen similar photos in people's houses, they must be suckered in by the "first official pics line", but these photos are truly vile. I took better ones with my phone of DD sleeping in my arms.

With DC1, the Bounty pack was on the trolley in the delivery room and had the child benefit form in already; I never saw a Bounty Rep at all. Simpson's in Edinburgh

With DC3, although I was in for almost a week, I never saw anyone; maybe because we were on the transitional care ward? Or maybe a different hospital? Leeds General Infirmary this time.

The thing is by the time you give birth bounty have already wormed their way in as a kind of pregnancy support company, with no mention of marketing. You get given a bounty pack a couple of times during pregnancy (look you can keep your notes in here) and by the time you get to post-natal you've got so used to seeing them attached to the NHS that it doesn't seem that strange, particularly when you've been 48 hours without sleep and are in a bit of a state.

Also it tends to direct new mums to the bounty talk boards which are full of shite and txtspk, took me ages to find MN.

Done with pleasure. I wish I'd had the courage to tell the Bounty rep to fuck off.

My prem DS was in NICU, the BW barged into my room, looked around then demanded to know where the baby was! I told her he was in intensive care, she looked visibly narked, then insisted she needed my details anyway. Not once did she actually look at, let alone make eye contact, with me. I was already confused, vulnerable and frankly distraught, she made it worse.

Well this is enlightening. Am a few weeks away from hang dc1. Anyone got tips on how to get the child benefit form if I tell bounty woman to f off?

• having

I discharged myself home early against medical advice following delivery of twins by C Section and this was largely down to the harassment of our Bounty rep as she simply wouldn't leave me alone.

It angers me to think that I was purposely targeted at what was one of the most vulnerable times of my life.

I remember feeling very shaky and utterly exhausted (mentally and physically) but too scared to try and drop off to sleep as I just knew there would be that knock on the door.

I agree with a previous poster that the problem begins antenatally. Why are notes given out in an envelope stuffed with crap sponsored by a private company? How the hell did this horrid commercial arrangement come to pass in the first place?!

When did pregnant women and new mothers become legitimate NHS-sanctioned targets for companies prepared to pay for privileged access to this vulnerable group?

If NHS hospitals get money for each 'hit' that the reps get on a patient (ie details vaptured or photo taken) then they are effectively making money out of their patients. It seems v dodgy ethically, and potentially a conflict of interest for the hospital staff, whose number one priority should be caring for their patients, not facilitating access to them by a private company.

Also, it strikes me that their brand name is rather apt. I'm imagining in my head a cartoon bounty hunter stalking the postnatal wards...

More seriously, one unfortunate side effect of this campaign is the amount of publicity that company is going to get out of it. No doubt some person out there will hear this news story and think 'oooo must hook up with that company, as they have fab access to our target demographic' .

Having read the previous mn thread on bounty I am pleased to say I was able to calmly and assertively tell the bounty lady NO thanks.

Shouldn't have had to though. Madwoman I am so sorry for your loss & being put through more pain.

Observation- Bounty chief exec must play golf with Boots & NHS top bods.
And the NHS gets money for each set of details Bounty 'acquires'.

Or how else would this set up have occurred?

NHS needs to STOP this arrangement and protect its patients.

And the money that the NHS must make from Bounty are paltry compared to the upset caused.

There are around 808,000 births in the UK in 2011 according to the Office of National Statistics. Not all will have been in hospitals, not all in hospitals will have involved a stay on the post-natal ward where the BW hunt, and not everyone on the post-natal ward will have given details or had photos taken.

But let's be generous and assume for these purposes that 500,000 births result in the BW getting enough info to justify Bounty receiving a payment from the NHS.

On the other thread a poster said her NHS Trust receives £5 per photo and £1 per name/address collected. So let's be generous again and assume that all 500,000 sets of patents buy a photo - that's £2.5 million in revenue for the NHS from Bounty. Across all the NHS trusts.

Compare that to the NHS's annual budget - £109 billion in 2012/13.

In other words, Bounty pays for 0.002% of NHS income. Or 2p out of every £1,000.

Banning Bounty from all post-natal wards would not bring about the collapse of the NHS.

One final comparison - NHS hospitals made £32 million in profits from car parks in 2011 - more than 10x the amount I estimate they made from Bounty. (I don't think they should make profit from car parking either, but at least people parking cars aren't recovering from the traumas of birth at the time.)

And, BTW, that's why I think it's a terrible idea to suggest that post partum mothers should pay the NHS a fiver for the privilege of not being hassled by a commercial organisation that the NHS invited into their wards in the first place. Fuck that.

Done.

So sorry for your loss madwoman - your story is a prime example of why it is disgusting that these reps should be allowed in hospitals at all.

Thanks for those figures Cinnabar!

Well, they're only back-of-an-envelope estimates that will inevitably include errors - but even if I'm out by a factor of 10 the conclusions don't change - it's peanuts to the NHS.

I had both my children in a mid wife hospital and didn't see any one from Bounty (although the mid wife did give me a bag with the first). I assume a 4 bed hospital is just too small for them to bother visiting.

I remember being disappointed with the contents as everything I'd read was the Bounty bag was amazing. Afterwards I was confused about the point of Bounty but I understand now they are after details.