6 NHS Bodies Asked. None Has a Record of Jayne’s Baby Bank

The short version

  • For more than two years the page has said it delivers free premature boxes “to the neonatal ward”, that it is “supported by Public Health Wales and Aneurin Bevan Health Board”, that NHS health visitors “recommend us”, and that its founder is “still employed by a health board”.
  • On 13 September 2026 we put six written questions to every health board, NHS trust and national NHS body in Wales.
  • Six have answered. Not one has a record of the organisation. “No dealings.” “No affiliation.” “No connection.” “No declarations.” “Not held.” “Not held.”
  • One health board checked with its Head of Midwifery, and added that it “would not allow any filming on wards without permission”.
  • Of the two bodies the page itself named in 2023, Public Health Wales holds nothing, and Aneurin Bevan, which runs the Grange in her photographs, has told us the books “donated to the NHS staff” were found on one ward, “stored in the ward manager’s office and had not been issued to patients”.
  • Cardiff and Vale’s maternity page has warned followers that re-uploaded content can “create the impression we are working in partnership with that organisation. This is not the case”, and named the two baby banks it does work with. Jayne’s Baby Bank is not one of them.
  • Her claim to be “still employed by a health board” first appears in April 2026, in 11,653 posts and 2,275 transcripts. No board, site or role has ever been named. We ask her three questions below.

Two bags at the foot of the sign

On the morning of 29 May 2026, Jayne’s Baby Bank posted a photograph and fifteen words:

“More book and T bags and book marks donated to the NHS staff this morning.”

Jaynesbabybank Registered – cic, 29 May 2026
Facebook post reading 'More book and T bags and book marks donated to the NHS staff this morning', showing two carrier bags on the paving at the base of the Grange University Hospital name sign
29 May 2026. Two carrier bags on the paving beneath the hospital’s name. One like. One share.

Look at what the photograph contains. A wall. On the wall, in brushed steel letters, Ysbyty Athrofaol Y Faenor / The Grange University Hospital: the specialist critical care hospital at Llanfrechfa, run by Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. On the paving below the lettering, a yellow carrier bag and a floral shopper, with a few small packets propped against them.

There is no member of staff in the photograph. No trolley, no reception desk, no signed receipt, no handover. Nobody at all. Two bags, said to hold books, tea bags and bookmarks, on the ground outside a hospital, photographed against the hospital’s name.

Eleven days later, on 9 June 2026, it happened again:

“More books and care packages dropped off to NHS staff ♻️👍”

Jaynesbabybank Registered – cic, 9 June 2026
Facebook post reading 'More books and care packages dropped off to NHS staff', with a photograph taken from an upper-floor window inside the hospital looking out over the car park
9 June 2026. The photograph is taken from a window on an upper floor, inside the building, looking down over the car park and green roof.

Note where that second photograph was taken from. Not the pavement. A window, several floors up, inside the building.

A black plastic crate labelled FREE in handwriting, filled with second-hand books with a Jayne's Baby Bank branded card on top, beside a clear tub of children's picture books on a floor
A crate marked “FREE” in biro, a branded Jayne’s Baby Bank card propped on top, and a tub of picture books. On the floor, against a wall.

Among the books, A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, a university reference work for students of English literature. Propped open on top of the pile, facing the camera, a card carrying the organisation’s logo. The logo is the only part of the arrangement that has been positioned with any care.

In a livestream on 7 January 2026 she described the method herself: the books go to the hospital with bookmarks in, and “We’ve just been leaving them where we know they frequent. Where they have their breaks in the hospitals.” Left in staff break areas. Not handed to anyone.

What the page has been telling people

Most of what Jayne’s Baby Bank says about itself moves. One sentence has not moved in two and a half years.

“We provide all new Mothers in Wales with 0-12 months essential clothes bundle for FREE & premature box for free which we deliver to the neonatal ward.”

The standing “How our Baby Bank Works” post

That is boilerplate, not a remark. We have it word for word on 15 January 2024, 10 July 2024, 4 February 2025, 23 September 2025 and twice on 13 September 2026, the day our enquiry went to the health boards. It sits alongside the shop addresses, the PayPal link and the Amazon wish list.

Two details in that sentence matter. The first is “the neonatal ward”: the ward that holds the smallest and most fragile patients in the Welsh NHS. The second is what is in the box. On 11 August 2024: “We give every mother in Wales 0-12 bundle of pre loved clothes for free.” Pre-loved. Donated by the public, sorted by volunteers, stored in the units this investigation has spent two years documenting.

On 9 August 2024 a number was attached: “These are gifted free and taken to the neonatal wards. We have gifted over 70 since we started in 2020.” Seventy boxes. Plural wards. In four years of archived posts, a named destination appears twice: “1 prem bundle delivered to the Heath” on 10 November 2025, and on 23 July 2026, looking for a volunteer with a car to take nappies, “We did Ystrad last time. So the Grange or Ebbw ? I don’t mind.” The same post states the standing position: “We provide newborn nappies at the delivery wards in several hospitals for Mum’s to have a free pack.”

The relationship, as described over four years

The institutional claims escalate. We give the date and the words.

  • 9 July 2022. Training “via the NMC and the local health and education boards in South East Wales. (Both know and support and folow us)” [sic].
  • 8 May 2023, livestream, on the free condoms kept in vases by the shop door and in a bird box outside for after hours: “The NHS has given us a pile. These are ones I bought off Amazon in bulk.”
  • 29 May 2023. Contraception for “young people, our mothers and under 18’s, anonymously”, “exactly the same as any NHS board and Council I’m the UK” [sic], “in our bird boxes outside the shops over night”.
  • 12 June 2023. “We have been offered a free contraceptive training course to help young people by the local health board!”
  • 9 July 2023. “We are also supported by Public Health Wales and Aneurin Bevan Health Board.”
  • 1 October 2024. “Donated from a hospital partner. We won’t name because of the haters will harrsss them. I will split between Risca, Blackwood and Pontypool shop so Mums can access.”
  • 20 May 2025, livestream from the Risca shop: “That’s NHS health visitors coming in and recommending us.” And: “health visitors don’t link up with you if you’re as bad as everybody makes out.”
  • 24 July 2025, livestream, asked whether she is authorised to hand out contraception: “And yes, we are. Cause we have done the training courses with the NHS. And obviously I studied nursing.”
  • 30 January 2026, livestream: “we work with the incontinence service, because obviously I did a placement with them when I was training as a nurse”.
  • 1 April 2026. “They provide us with sanitary equipment and contraception and the free training for volunteers. I am still employed by a health board.”
  • 31 August 2026. “Health Boards and Health Visitor and Midwives have had sample packs for months to distribute.”

Eleven statements over four years. Read them again for what is missing: not one names a department, a contact, a programme, a document or a date. Support from the NHS, when it exists, comes with all five.

The Facebook post of 12 June 2023 as archived: 'We have been offered a free contraceptive training course to help young people by the local health board!'
12 June 2023, as held in our archive. The health board is not named; no date was ever set. View in the archive

Read the 1 October 2024 post again, because the first half distracts from the second. It describes goods coming from an NHS hospital, and then being split between three retail premises. The photograph attached to it shows what the goods were.

Six tins of Aptamil stage 2 follow-on milk stacked on a shop counter, posted with the caption 'Donated from a hospital partner'
1 October 2024. The photograph posted with “Donated from a hospital partner”: tins of follow-on formula, stacked on a shop counter.

Formula, said to have come from a hospital, going into shops that sold formula. It is the same pattern as 22 September 2022, when “Tons of incontinece pads” went on the shop floor with the note that “they are nhs property so we wont charge for them”. Whichever direction the goods travel, the NHS is the name on the label.

We asked every health board in Wales

A hospital is not a person who can be doorstepped. It is a public body with a board, a gifts register and a statutory duty to answer questions about what it accepts and what it gives away. So on 13 September 2026 we wrote to every health board and NHS trust in Wales, and to the national bodies: Aneurin Bevan, Cardiff and Vale, Cwm Taf Morgannwg, Hywel Dda, Swansea Bay, Betsi Cadwaladr, Powys, Velindre, Public Health Wales, Digital Health and Care Wales and NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership.

All of them, because the claim is not local. The claim is “all new Mothers in Wales”, “the neonatal ward”, “several hospitals”, and support from a named health board and a national public health body.

We asked each the same six things: whether Jayne’s Baby Bank or anyone acting for it had delivered goods to its hospitals, wards or maternity units; which sites; whether access for deliveries, photography or filming had been authorised; whether permission had been given for images taken on its sites to be used in the organisation’s promotional material; whether it held any policy, agreement, record or correspondence relating to the organisation; and whether it had any concerns about the use of its hospitals, staff or branding.

The questions were framed so that a “no” is as informative as a “yes”. An NHS body with a genuine arrangement has a record of it, because that is what governance is. A body with none says so.

What has come back

Written answers received from NHS Wales bodies

6 asked and answered. 0 with any record.

Five replied within three days. The sixth took fifteen. Aneurin Bevan’s formal answer is awaited; what its executive office has already told us is in the next section. Officers are not named; organisations are.

Hywel Dda University Health Board, 16 September 2026

Hywel Dda did not simply check a database. It went to the clinical service most likely to know.

Extract from Hywel Dda University Health Board's reply: checked with Head of Midwifery, no dealings with Jayne's Baby Bank, no record or recollection of being approached, filming on wards not allowed without permission
Hywel Dda University Health Board, 16 September 2026. Name of the officer removed. Tap to enlarge

“I have checked with our Head of Midwifery and can confirm that, as far as we’re aware, we have had no dealings with Jayne’s Baby Bank.”

“Also we would not allow any filming on wards without permission. All requests to film would come through the media team. I have checked our records and asked colleagues – we have no record or recollection of being approached by the organisation.”

Hywel Dda University Health Board, 16 September 2026

The health board also offered the obvious innocent explanation: “We’re probably a bit far west for them, maybe?” Fair, and we make the point for them. Hywel Dda covers Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire; Jayne’s Baby Bank operated in Caerphilly, Torfaen and Newport. But the claim is not “we serve Gwent”. The claim, repeated in the pinned post, is “all new Mothers in Wales”. Hywel Dda delivers maternity care to a large part of Wales, and its Head of Midwifery knows of no dealings with them.

Velindre University NHS Trust, 16 September 2026

Extract from Velindre University NHS Trust's formal response: no affiliation or known engagement with Jayne's Baby Bank, no records in the charity staffing group, no linked records, no known social media engagement
Velindre University NHS Trust, reference CORP 26/27 – 104. Tap to enlarge

Velindre is a specialist trust: non-surgical oncology, specialist palliative care and the Welsh Blood Service. It does not run maternity units, and we say so rather than let a “no” do work it has not earned. What its answer does establish is narrower and still useful: the trust checked its charity records specifically, and its social media, and found nothing.

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, 16 September 2026

Cwm Taf Morgannwg runs the Royal Glamorgan, Prince Charles and Princess of Wales hospitals, with maternity units at each, in the next valleys west of Caerphilly. It answered under reference CTMUHB_540_26 and went to the one document that would record a gift from any outside organisation.

Extract from Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board's response: on review of the Gifts, Hospitality and Sponsorship Register, no declarations regarding donations from Jayne's Baby Bank
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, reference CTMUHB_540_26. Tap to enlarge

“On review of our Gifts, Hospitality & Sponsorship Register we can confirm that we have not received any declarations regarding donations from Jayne’s Baby Bank.”

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, 16 September 2026

Every other question was answered “N/A”: no locations, no permissions, no concerns, because there was nothing on the record to have concerns about. The health board then added something it was not asked for:

Extract from Cwm Taf Morgannwg's response describing an Authorised External Personnel Policy currently going to committee, developed to deal with this type of situation
Same response. The policy is not yet published. Tap to enlarge

“There is also an “Authorised External Personnel Policy” which is currently going to Committee. This policy has been developed to deal with this type of situation and sets out our approach to handling it. Once approved, the policy will be available within the public domain.”

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, 16 September 2026

“This type of situation” is outside organisations turning up on hospital premises to distribute goods and promote themselves. The health board did not say what prompted the policy, and we do not suggest it was this organisation. We note only that a health board now considers the situation common enough to need a written rule.

Public Health Wales, 16 September 2026

This is one of the two bodies the page named in July 2023 as a supporter. Its answer, under reference FOI 2026 190:

Extract from Public Health Wales' response: neither Public Health Wales Trust nor NHS Wales Performance and Improvement hold this information; Public Health Wales is a separate organisation to the health boards
Public Health Wales, reference FOI 2026 190. Tap to enlarge

“Neither Public Health Wales Trust nor NHS Wales Performance and Improvement hold this information.”

“Public Health Wales is a separate organisation to the Health Boards and other NHS Wales organisations. Therefore, do not have access to this information.”

Public Health Wales, 16 September 2026

We read this carefully and we report it carefully. Public Health Wales is not a health board and does not run hospitals, and its answer says so. But our fifth question asked for any policy, agreement, record or correspondence relating to donations, promotional visits, photography or filming involving the organisation. The answer is that none is held. The body named in 2023 as a supporter holds nothing that involves Jayne’s Baby Bank. The narrower question, whether Public Health Wales has ever funded, trained or otherwise supported the organisation in any form, remains open.

The Facebook post of 9 July 2023 as archived: 'We are also supported by Public Health Wales and Aneurin Bevan Health Board.'
The 2023 claim, as held in our archive, beside the 2026 answer above it. View in the archive

The two national bodies

NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, which runs procurement, audit and counter-fraud across NHS Wales, replied on 16 September: it “does not have data in relation to your enquiry as we are not an NHS organisation that routinely treats patients or has had any connection with the aforementioned body.”

Digital Health and Care Wales replied on 28 September under reference FOI/7067910: “We do not hold this information.” It added that the information “may be held by the Local Health Boards”. Neither body treats patients; both are included for completeness, and because the sweep was deliberately total.

Where every body stands

BodyRepliedPosition
BodyHywel Dda University Health BoardReplied16 Sept 2026Position“No dealings.” “No record or recollection of being approached.” Filming on wards needs permission via the media team.
BodyVelindre University NHS TrustReplied16 Sept 2026Position“No affiliation or known engagement.” No charity records, no linked records, no social media engagement.
BodyCwm Taf Morgannwg University Health BoardReplied16 Sept 2026PositionNo declarations regarding donations from the organisation on the gifts register. All other questions N/A. A new policy on external personnel is going to committee.
BodyPublic Health Wales (named by the page in 2023)Replied16 Sept 2026PositionInformation not held. Not a health board; no access to health board data.
BodyNHS Wales Shared Services PartnershipReplied16 Sept 2026PositionNo connection with the organisation.
BodyDigital Health and Care WalesReplied28 Sept 2026PositionInformation not held.
BodyAneurin Bevan University Health Board (named by the page in 2023; runs the Grange, Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr, Nevill Hall and the Royal Gwent)RepliedAwaitedPositionFormal answer awaited. UPDATE-ON-RECEIPT. Separately, its Chief Executive’s office wrote to us on 11 June and 28 August 2026: books found on one ward “had not been issued to patients”; donated items are assessed by the receiving ward’s managers; no arrangement with the organisation is described. Next section.
BodyCardiff and Vale University Health Board (runs the Heath)RepliedAwaitedPositionUPDATE-ON-RECEIPT
BodySwansea Bay, Betsi Cadwaladr, Powys Teaching Health BoardRepliedAwaitedPosition—

We say plainly what these six answers do and do not show. None of the six runs the hospital in the photographs. The health board that does, Aneurin Bevan, is also the one the page named in 2023, and it had not answered the formal request when this article was prepared. Public Health Wales put the statutory due date at 9 October 2026. This article will be updated when Aneurin Bevan and Cardiff and Vale answer, and if they do not, that will be reported with the date. But Aneurin Bevan is not silent on the subject, and what it has already said is the most specific account anyone has given of what happens to these donations.

What the six answers do establish is that NHS bodies can check and answer this question within days, that the checks reach as far as a Head of Midwifery and a gifts register, and that so far not one has found anything resembling the relationship the public has been told about. Put plainly: no NHS organisation in Wales that has answered holds a single document connecting it to Jayne’s Baby Bank.

What Aneurin Bevan has said

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board runs the Grange, Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr, Nevill Hall and the Royal Gwent, and employs the health visitors and midwives of Caerphilly, Torfaen and Newport. If any health board “supports” Jayne’s Baby Bank, it is this one. It has not yet answered the formal request. Its Executive Board has, however, been answering this site since June on a narrower question, and the answers are worth more than a form reply.

Two second-hand books with handwritten labels reading 'Gifted to NHS Staff from Jayne's Baby Bank Registered CIC 16838920', with stickers and bookmarks attached
Two of the books. Handwritten labels: “Gifted to NHS Staff from Jayne’s Baby Bank Registered CIC 16838920”. One of the photographs we sent the health board on 10 June 2026.

On 10 June 2026, the day after the second “dropped off to NHS staff” post, we wrote to the Chief Executive. We did not allege contamination; we said so in terms. We asked four things: whether the books and “care packages” had been formally accepted by staff or management; whether infection prevention and control assessments had been made before distribution; whether ward staff had raised concerns about their condition; and whether donations from outside organisations are inspected before they enter patient areas. The reason for asking was the one set out in the next section: the goods were coming from premises under fire and environmental health prohibition.

The Chief Executive’s office acknowledged the next morning and replied in substance the same afternoon, 11 June 2026:

Extract from Aneurin Bevan University Health Board's reply of 11 June 2026: a small number of books identified on one ward, stored in the ward manager's office, not issued to patients; infection prevention advice sought; donated reading materials to be managed via the Chaplaincy
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Chief Executive’s office, 11 June 2026. Names removed. Tap to enlarge

“Following a review, a small number of books were identified on one ward. These were stored in the ward manager’s office and had not been issued to patients.”

“In light of your concerns, advice has been sought from the Infection Prevention and Control Team, and clear guidance has been reinforced. To support a consistent and safe approach going forward, arrangements are being made for any appropriate donated reading materials to be managed via the Chaplaincy service, who already oversee similar resources and can ensure they are distributed safely and appropriately. In addition, the key principles for accepting donations will be shared with staff and made available on the Health Board intranet.”

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, 11 June 2026

Read that against the two posts. “Donated to the NHS staff” on 29 May. “Dropped off to NHS staff” on 9 June. The hospital’s account, two days later, is that the books got as far as a ward manager’s office and no further. Nobody had been given one. The Infection Prevention and Control Team was consulted, guidance was “reinforced”, donated reading material was moved under the Chaplaincy, and the rules for accepting donations were recirculated to staff. That is not what a hospital does with a partner’s delivery. It is what a hospital does with a problem.

Over the summer we passed on three further reports from readers, each marked as a report rather than a finding: on 7 August, that books carrying the organisation’s labels had been seen in several outpatient departments and public areas at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr and that staff in one clinic had been told to dispose of them; on 15 August, that books and rugby flags had been left at the Grange’s main reception, in a reader’s words “kinda hidden between a wheel chair and vending machine”, and that reception staff had been asked to remove them; and on 25 August, that items had been left inside a health centre in Malpas with nappies on a table. The Chief Executive’s office confirmed on 12 and 17 August that each had gone to the Infection Prevention Team. The health board has neither confirmed nor disputed the specifics, and we do not present them as established.

A black plastic crate of second-hand books left on the floor beneath a leaflet rack in a waiting area; the site is not confirmed
One of the anonymous drop-offs reported to us in August 2026: a crate of books on the floor beneath a leaflet rack. The photograph was passed to the health board; the site is not confirmed and we do not name it.

On 28 August 2026 at 14:36 came the fuller reply, sent on behalf of the Executive Director of Nursing and Deputy Chief Executive:

Extract from Aneurin Bevan University Health Board's reply of 28 August 2026: the Health Board welcomes donations; where items are offered to wards, the receiving team's managers assess them under the Infection Prevention and Control Policy; items not meeting the standard are not accepted
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, on behalf of the Executive Director of Nursing and Deputy Chief Executive, 28 August 2026. Names removed. Tap to enlarge

“The Health Board welcomes donations that support patients, families and staff across our services. Where items are offered to wards or departments, responsibility for determining whether they are suitable for use rests with the receiving team where ward and departmental managers assess donated items in accordance with the Health Board’s Infection Prevention and Control Policy and associated guidance. As part of this process, consideration is given to the condition, cleanliness and suitability of items before they are introduced into patient or clinical environments. Where items do not meet the required standards, they would not be accepted for use.”

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, 28 August 2026

In fairness, the first sentence is the health board’s and it stands: donations are welcome. Read the rest for what it is. It is the position for any donor. Items are “offered”. The receiving ward decides. Items that fail the standard are not accepted. There is no partner, programme, agreement or named organisation anywhere in it. Jayne’s Baby Bank is described the way a stranger with a carrier bag is described.

Five hours later, at 19:43 the same evening, the page posted:

The Facebook post of 28 August 2026 as archived: 'The ward managers will decided on receipt of the donated items from any donator. There are zero infection control issues with any of our donated items.'
28 August 2026, 19:43, as held in our archive. View in the archive

We do not know what she had seen that afternoon. We note only that her sentence and the health board’s describe the same process, and that “from any donator” is her phrase. That is the point. She is any donor. As for “zero infection control issues”: the health board’s own account of what it did with the books at the Grange is three paragraphs above.

“We would not allow any filming on wards without permission”

Of everything in the six replies, that line opens a door.

Hywel Dda volunteered it without being pressed, because to a health board communications team it is obvious: hospitals control photography and filming on their sites, to protect patients who have not consented to appear in someone else’s content, in buildings where people are frightened, unwell, undressed, bereaved or in labour. Requests go through the media team. Every health board in Wales operates some version of the rule.

Now set that against the record. The 29 May post is a photograph taken on hospital grounds, framed to include the hospital’s name. The 9 June post is a photograph taken inside the building, from an upper floor. A third shows a crate on a floor with the organisation’s branding propped on top. All three were published to a page run as the organisation’s promotional channel.

And on 24 November 2025 the page asked its followers to go and do the same on its behalf:

The Facebook post of 24 November 2025 as archived, asking followers to deliver newborn nappies around the hospitals and ask for a handover photo with the team
24 November 2025, as held in our archive: “deliver them around the hospitals for us and ask for a handover photo with the team”. View in the archive

Unvetted members of the public, asked to carry goods onto NHS maternity wards and come back with a photograph of NHS staff holding them. Repeated on 30 November 2025 (“Looking to get all the newborn/size 1 nappies donated to the maternity wards before I go on holiday”) and on 23 July 2026 (“if there is a Mum with transport that can do this for me please as running behind this week and super busy”).

And her own description of what happens next, from the 28 August post above: “The ward managers will decided on receipt of the donated items from any donator.” Items arrive; a ward manager decides. That is what happens to an unsolicited parcel. It is not what happens under a partnership, and it is not a system that includes a handover photograph.

16 August 2026: “a captive audience”

What a photograph cannot show, a livestream can. On 16 August 2026, the day after the landlord’s possession notice went up in the window of 5 Crane Street, Carrie-Anne Ridsdale went live to answer critics who had accused her of taking nappies from a hospital. Her rebuttal is more interesting than the accusation.

“We didn’t announce we were going to do a meet and greet… So obviously we didn’t need to announce it because we knew we would have a captive audience at the maternity part of the Grange.”

“We regularly donate size, prem, size zero… because it’s for us to get our name out there. We’ve got special stickers that go on the bag.”

“we’re giving them out to people that looked pregnant”

“some of the mothers couldn’t come down because they were stuck on the wards. So we took up, I think I took maybe two bags full, maybe up to the wards.”

“And then we left a few on the windowsill just outside, just in case we miss people. We actually give some to people in the lifts again.”

Carrie-Anne Ridsdale, livestream, 16 August 2026

Her post the same evening adds the last step, and the purpose of the goods:

The Facebook post of 16 August 2026 as archived: 'they have OUR stickers on them' and 'I took them up to the maternity ward to the mums who couldn't make it down for the midwives to hand out'
16 August 2026, 21:05, as held in our archive. View in the archive
Packs of newborn nappies and Peppa Pig picture books laid out on a floral blanket, posted on 16 August 2026 with the note that they carry Jayne's Baby Bank stickers
Posted 16 August 2026 with the words “they have OUR stickers on them”. The nappies she says went up to the ward, photographed on a floral blanket.

Set the organisation aside and read it purely as a description of an afternoon at an acute hospital:

  • An unannounced promotional stall at a hospital, sited there because maternity patients are a “captive audience”.
  • Goods handed to strangers because they “looked pregnant”, and to people in the lifts.
  • Goods left unattended on an external windowsill.
  • Two bags carried up onto the wards; NHS midwives described as handing items to patients.
  • Branded stickers on every pack, with the stated purpose of raising the organisation’s profile.

Every one of those is either something the health board authorised, or something it did not. There is no third category. That is the question now sitting with Aneurin Bevan.

Where the goods were coming from

This matters to the NHS question for one reason: every hospital visit on the record took place after the buildings where the organisation stored and sorted donated stock had been placed under statutory prohibition. It is why we wrote to Aneurin Bevan about infection control in the first place.

DateWhereWhat happened
Date4 Sept 2025Where5 Crane Street, PontypoolWhat happenedFire Risk Assessment grades the premises a “Substantial Risk” to life.
DateMarch 2026WherePontypool premisesWhat happenedFire service Prohibition Notice served.
Date31 March 2026WhereUnit 5, Newbridge Road, the donation centreWhat happenedFire loading “excessive”. Premises prohibited; access restricted to the removal of materials.
Date29 May and 9 June 2026WhereThe Grange University HospitalWhat happenedBooks photographed on the paving and from an upper floor. “Donated to the NHS staff.”
Date24 July 2026Where5b Crane StreetWhat happenedEnvironmental health prohibition: serious risk from water penetration, dampness and mould growth.
Date1–15 Aug 2026WhereCrane StreetWhat happenedStock removed by the van-load. Landlord posts possession notice on 15 August.
Date16 Aug 2026WhereThe Grange University HospitalWhat happenedUnannounced “meet and greet” at the maternity entrance. Goods carried up to the wards.

Twenty-three days separate a prohibition notice citing dampness and mould growth from bags being carried onto a maternity ward. The warehouse had been prohibited for 138 days by the same afternoon.

In the same 16 August broadcast she describes the building the operation had just left: “Under the health and safety law, he cannot rent that building to us… the mould was identified by the council… the building is unsafe.” One recording. Two statements. The building is unsafe, and we took the bags up to the ward.

In fairness, she makes a specific defence of the 16 August nappies and it should be set out in full: “These have been purchased out of baby bank fundraising. I will tell you exactly how many nappies we had there. We had 56 packs because I thought we bought 50, but we’d had six packs. And we had one open pack that I’d sellotaped up and I put in there, which I didn’t really want to take to the meet and greet, but it got in there.”

Take that at face value. It answers whether those particular nappies were second-hand; on her account, they were not, and we report that. It does not answer where 56 packs were stored while both storage premises were prohibited. It does not withdraw the opened, re-sealed pack, which sits beside the organisation’s own stated standard of 30 August 2026: “We accept donations of opened and unopened nappies.” It does not touch the books, which are second-hand by definition. And it does not touch the claim this article began with: the premature boxes and 0–12 bundles are, on the page’s own description, pre-loved clothing, and it is those the standing post says are “delivered to the neonatal ward”.

“The health boards have not said they don’t work with us”

That sentence, from 1 April 2026, inverted the burden of proof. No health board had issued a statement denying a relationship with Jayne’s Baby Bank, because health boards do not issue statements about organisations they have never heard of. The absence of a denial was offered as a confirmation.

“The health boards have not said they don’t work with us. They provide us with sanitary equipment and contraception and the free training for volunteers. I am still employed by a health board. I don’t need validation from the health boards . They are my colleagues.”

Jayne’s Baby Bank, 1 April 2026

That position is no longer available. Six NHS bodies have been asked directly and have answered in writing, and the seventh has described her as any other donor. The second sentence of the same post, that health boards supply the organisation with sanitary equipment, contraception and volunteer training, is exactly the kind of arrangement that leaves a paper trail, and it is exactly what question five asked for. Nothing has been produced by any body.

The fourth sentence is the tell. I don’t need validation from the health boards. They are my colleagues. In two sentences the position moves from the health boards supporting her to her not needing them to say so, while upgrading the relationship to collegiate. Both halves cannot be load-bearing at once.

The one relationship we can document

There is one, from 26 September 2025: “With Cardiff and Vale University Health Board Maternity Services – I just made it onto their weekly engagement list by being one of their top engagers! 🎉” The image attached is Facebook’s own celebration graphic. A “top engager” badge is generated automatically by the platform and measures one thing: how often an account has commented on and reacted to a page. The page has no say in it and gives nothing. Posting it as a relationship is the equivalent of standing outside a building you have never been inside and announcing that you are with them. It is, as far as four years of archived posts show, the only documented connection between Jayne’s Baby Bank and a named NHS health board.

The engagement was real, in one direction. The archive shows the page sharing posts from the Cardiff and Vale maternity page on at least seven occasions between 21 September 2025 and 31 July 2026, three of them in the three days before it announced itself as one of that page’s top engagers.

What Cardiff and Vale told its followers

Cardiff and Vale has not yet answered the formal request. But its maternity page has said something in public that bears directly on that badge. After members of the Jayne’s Baby Bank Exposed group reported to the health board that the page was re-uploading its maternity content as its own, the health board published this reminder within days:

The wording of the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board maternity page's post: a third party re-uploading its content creates the impression of partnership, this is not the case, and the two baby banks it works with are named
The health board’s words, from a reader’s screenshot of the post. It does not name the third party.

“Recently, we became aware of a third party who is copying and pasting our content, downloading images and re-uploading them as their own. While we appreciate people wanting to share our messages, sharing content this way can change the meaning of the original post and create the impression we are working in partnership with that organisation. This is not the case.”

“We will always tag and credit organisations we work with, if not clear from a post’s original content.”

“For reference, the fantastic baby banks we proudly work with are:” Cwtch Baby Bank and Little Smarties Cardiff.

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, maternity page, public post

We are careful about what this shows. The post does not name the third party, and we do not say the health board was writing about Jayne’s Baby Bank; we say what our readers had reported to it, and how soon afterwards the post appeared. What the post does, in terms, is two things. It says that re-uploading its content creates a false impression of partnership. And, asked by nobody, it lists the baby banks it “proudly” works with. There are two. Jayne’s Baby Bank, which told its followers it was “with” this page, is not one of them.

“I am still employed by a health board”

The organisation’s NHS claims rest, in the end, on one person’s standing. So it matters that the standing has been described in several incompatible ways, and that the strongest version is the most recent.

The Facebook post of 10 June 2026 as archived: a numbered denial of arrests ending 'I have worked in retail, care and schools all my life' and 'I am still employed by a health board and they ask for a rolling DBS'
The post of 10 June 2026, as held in our archive. Both sentences are hers. View in the archive

We searched every post and every livestream transcript in the archive, 11,653 posts and 2,275 transcripts reaching back to 2022, for the words “employed by a health board” and their variants. They appear for the first time on 1 April 2026, in the reply quoted in the previous section, as the third of four sentences.

It was repeated on 10 June 2026, in a numbered post denying arrests, and this time it arrived with its own context:

“I have worked in retail, care and schools all my life and they would ask for DBS I was accepted to Cardiff University 2016 to study adult nursing and they would ask for a rolling DBS . I am still employed by a health board and they ask for a rolling DBS.”

Jayne’s Baby Bank, 10 June 2026

Retail, care and schools, all her life. Then, two sentences later, a health board. On 5 September 2026, reading this site’s coverage aloud on a livestream, she gave a third account of her employer: “She has claimed to be employed by a health board. Yeah. And I was employed by social services.” Later in the same broadcast, the claim is restated as a grievance rather than a fact: “for you to now sit there and say that I didn’t go to Cardiff University and I didn’t study nursing and I am not employed by the health board. Just shows how much you know absolutely nothing about me and our family.”

Set those beside her own account of how the baby bank began, given in the sit-down interview and repeated on 26 July 2026: “Prior to the pandemic, I was a student nurse, and I got ill, and I wasn’t able to work on the wards because I was considered high risk.” A student, not an employee, and not on the wards since before 2020. From 2020 the page documents shops and a donation centre run, in her words, “seven days a week”. In an undated livestream in the archive she explains the NHS relationship in a single sentence: “We’ve been working with the hospitals and the NHS since we started, right? Because that’s where I studied my nursing, right?”

Across all of it, no health board is named. No hospital, department, ward, role, grade or manager. Her own Facebook profile, which we examined in the academic-record article, lists every role as “Former” except “Founder and Director”, and offers “Bsc nursing at NHS”, which is not a job and not a qualification any NHS body awards.

What a “rolling DBS” does and does not show. A Disclosure and Barring Service certificate is issued to the individual, not to an employer. The Update Service, which is what “rolling” usually means, is an annual subscription the certificate holder pays for, and any organisation can check its status with the holder’s consent. It records that a person has been checked. It says nothing about who, if anyone, employs them. Nor can a Freedom of Information request settle the question: a public body will not confirm or deny whether a named individual is on its payroll, because that is personal data. The only person who can answer it is her.

Three questions for Carrie-Anne Ridsdale, who trades as Jayne Price. She has a standing right of reply on this site and anything she sends will be published in full and unedited.

1. Which health board employs you?
2. In what role, and at which site?
3. Since when?

A payslip with the figures removed, or a line from an HR department, would settle it in a day.

Claim by claim

The claimThe record
The claim“We are also supported by Public Health Wales and Aneurin Bevan Health Board” (9 July 2023)The recordPublic Health Wales: information not held. Aneurin Bevan: formal answer awaited (UPDATE-ON-RECEIPT); its executive office describes items “offered to wards” and assessed by the receiving team, the position for any donor.
The claimPremature boxes of pre-loved clothes “delivered to the neonatal ward” (six dates, 2024–2026)The recordHywel Dda, after checking with its Head of Midwifery: “no dealings”, “no record or recollection”. Cwm Taf Morgannwg: no declarations on the gifts register. Aneurin Bevan and Cardiff and Vale awaited.
The claim“Over 70” premature boxes to neonatal wards since 2020 (9 August 2024)The recordTwo named destinations in four years of archived posts: “the Heath” (10 Nov 2025) and “Ystrad” (23 July 2026). No handover, receipt or staff member appears in any photograph.
The claim“Donated from a hospital partner” (1 October 2024)The recordPartner unnamed. Photograph shows follow-on formula on a shop counter, to be “split between Risca, Blackwood and Pontypool shop”.
The claim“The NHS has given us a pile” of condoms; a “free contraceptive training course” offered “by the local health board”; “training courses with the NHS” (May 2023, June 2023, July 2025)The recordNo body has confirmed supplying contraception or training. The board for Caerphilly and Torfaen is Aneurin Bevan: awaited.
The claim“NHS health visitors coming in and recommending us” (20 May 2025)The recordHealth visitors in Risca are employed by Aneurin Bevan: awaited. No health visiting service has been named.
The claim“Health Boards and Health Visitor and Midwives have had sample packs for months to distribute” (31 August 2026)The recordNot confirmed by any body. Hywel Dda’s Head of Midwifery: no dealings.
The claim“The health boards have not said they don’t work with us” (1 April 2026)The recordSix have now said so in writing.
The claim“I am still employed by a health board” (1 April, 10 June, 5 September 2026)The recordFirst appears April 2026. No board, site or role named. Same post: “retail, care and schools all my life”. 5 September: “I was employed by social services”. Three questions put to her above.
The claimBooks and care packages “donated to the NHS staff” (29 May, 9 June 2026)The recordPhotographs show bags and a crate on the floor. Her own description: left “where they have their breaks in the hospitals”. Aneurin Bevan, 11 June 2026: “a small number of books were identified on one ward. These were stored in the ward manager’s office and had not been issued to patients.”
The claim“There are zero infection control issues with any of our donated items” (28 August 2026)The recordAneurin Bevan, 11 June 2026: advice sought from the Infection Prevention and Control Team, “clear guidance has been reinforced”, donated reading material to be “managed via the Chaplaincy service”, principles for accepting donations recirculated to staff.
The claimPhotography and filming at NHS sites, published as promotionThe recordHywel Dda: “we would not allow any filming on wards without permission.” Cwm Taf Morgannwg: an external personnel policy going to committee.
The claimAssociation with “Cardiff and Vale University Health Board Maternity Services” (26 September 2025)The recordAn automated Facebook top-engager badge, awarded for commenting volume. The same maternity page has since told followers that re-uploading its content creates a false impression of partnership, “This is not the case”, and named the two baby banks it works with. Jayne’s Baby Bank is not one of them.

Why this one matters

Most of what this investigation has documented concerns money, premises and paperwork. This is different, for two reasons.

The first is borrowed authority. “Supported by Public Health Wales and Aneurin Bevan Health Board” and “I am still employed by a health board” are not boasts about shop square footage. They are assurances to every mother deciding whether to take a bundle of second-hand baby clothes from this organisation, and to every member of the public deciding whether to hand over a bag of donations or a card payment. The NHS is the most trusted institution in the country. Attaching its name to an operation is worth more than any advertising, which is exactly why it is worth checking, and exactly why health boards control who photographs what on their sites.

The second is the direction of travel. The public gives in the belief that some of it reaches a neonatal ward. On 16 August 2026 the organisation said what the transaction is actually for: “it’s for us to get our name out there.”

Six NHS bodies have checked. No dealings, no affiliation, no connection, no declarations, not held, not held. The seventh, the one that runs the hospital in the photographs, has not answered the formal request, but has told us in writing that the books went no further than a ward manager’s office and that it has changed how donated reading material is handled. Cardiff and Vale is still to answer, and we have set out exactly who has replied and who has not.

What is not incomplete is the photograph. Two carrier bags, on the paving, beneath the name of a hospital. A hospital is not a shop window.

Were you there? If you work at the Grange, the Heath, Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr, Nevill Hall or the Royal Gwent and have been handed, or found, goods carrying Jayne’s Baby Bank stickers; if you were approached at the maternity entrance on 16 August 2026; or if you are a health visitor or midwife who has been told the organisation works with your service, we would like to hear from you. We do not publish names without consent.

Sources and related reporting

Note on this report. Enquiries were sent to every health board and NHS trust in Wales, together with the national bodies, on 13 September 2026. Responses are quoted verbatim and attributed to the organisation that sent them; document extracts are reproduced with individual officers’ names removed. Our correspondence with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board’s Chief Executive’s office between 10 June and 28 August 2026 is summarised rather than reproduced; the health board’s replies are quoted verbatim. Reports passed to the health board by readers are described as reports. Where an organisation has not yet responded, we say so rather than leave a gap.

Quotations attributed to Jayne’s Baby Bank and to Carrie-Anne Ridsdale are taken from public Facebook posts and public livestream recordings, reproduced with their original spelling. Livestream quotations are speech-to-text transcriptions and are marked by date; the recordings are held. The fire safety chronology is drawn from FOI request IG005053 as set out in our report of 17 April 2026; the environmental health prohibition of 24 July 2026 is as set out in our report of 16 August 2026.

This article does not suggest that any NHS body, member of NHS staff, health visitor or midwife has acted improperly. Where goods were accepted or handed over, the people involved had no way of knowing what this article sets out. Nothing here concerns the medical care of any individual, and no clinical service is criticised.

Factual statements are supported by evidence where available, and opinions are identified as such. Nothing on this site is a legal finding or legal advice. Carrie-Anne Ridsdale, also known publicly as Jayne Price, has a standing right of reply; any response will be published in full and unedited, and corrections supported by verifiable evidence will be reviewed.

…Sherlock