MARKETING ON MATERNITY WARDS

That this House notes with concern the interruption of new mothers in NHS maternity wards by sales representatives; expresses concern that these representatives pass on advertising material during this time, that, more worringly, they extract data from these new mothers in order to sell it on to third parties and that sales representatives' motivation is unclear, with many new mothers believing they are giving their details to an official from the NHS; further notes that this confusion is compounded by the fact that HM Revenue and Customs pays Bounty £90,000 annually to distribute child benefit forms in their 812,000 baby bags, the information from which is sold on to third parties; further expresses concern that the NHS receives £2.3 million annually in fees and equipment from Bounty for access to maternity wards; highlights a recent Mumsnet survey which showed that over half of new mothers felt the Bounty sales representative invaded their privacy; further expresses concern that new mothers are taken advantage of by these practices during a vulnerable time; further highlights that Bounty baby bags and other marketing materials, such as Emily's Diary, validated by the Royal College of General Practitioners, which offers gift packs in exchange for personal data, implies the approval of these products and practices by NHS doctors, radiographers and midwives; condemns the commercialisation of the NHS maternity ward; congratulates Poole NHS Hospital Trust for cancelling its contract with Bounty; and calls on the Government to stop allowing sales representatives on to all maternity wards, to ensure that materials handed to new parents at this time are informative without advertisement and to forbid the selling of data acquired at this time being sold on to third parties.