ASA Adjudication on Home Health (UK) Ltd

Ad

A commercial ad on Ebay in April 2011, for pregnancy tests, stated "10 ULTRA EARLY 10mIU NHS PREGNANCY TTC TEST/TESTS".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that the product had been endorsed by the NHS.

Response

Home Health (UK) Ltd (Home Health) said the ad clearly stated that they supplied the NHS and not that they were endorsed by the NHS. They submitted an extract of an e-mail from the NHS Branding and Identity department, which they said demonstrated that they were permitted to refer to the NHS in text format and that that was in no way considered to be an endorsement by the NHS of their products.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted the documentation provided by Home Health. However, we understood that whilst Home Health were permitted to state in text that they supplied the NHS, they were not permitted to describe their product as an NHS pregnancy test. We considered that consumers were likely to understand the claim "10 ULTRA EARLY 10mIU NHS PREGNANCY TTC TEST/TESTS" to mean that the products were endorsed or authorised by the NHS, when that was not the case. We therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.50 (Endorsements and testimonials).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Home Health not to describe their products as NHS pregnancy tests.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)