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OFSTED

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Gemziewooo · 18/09/2013 16:42

Hi does anyone know what sort of questions ofsted ask kitchen staff at nurseries? theres been an incident where a member of staff have given a child milk when they are allergic to milk?? so management think ofsted might come into kitchen?? please. am th cook and just want to prepare myself

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atworknotworking · 18/09/2013 19:19

Hi not an inspector but owner/manager, with 2 recent outstandings so am familiar with new inspection criteria.

I am presuming if management thinks Ofsted coming that the parent has complained? or the allergy had a significant medical effect on the child?

What will happen if this is the case is a complete re-inspection of all areas this is what happens now rather than an investigation regarding the particular incident. I would expect that the inspection will take particular note of control measures within the setting and what measures you take to prevent this type of incident occurring particularly around staying safe and health and safety.

As a basic you should have in place a daily risk assessment detailing the children attending with allergies, the kitchen (your area) should have an allergy/intolerance/foods forbidden for religious reasons list, ours is renewed monthly or when a new child starts, this should be checked prior to prepping each meal/snack and control measures for separate cooking of foodstuffs and cross contamination taken into account by cook, for example our cook has different pans/trays and coloured utensils for vegetarian/allergy/hallal etc so they never come into contact.

The management team and room staff / keyworkers should be sharing info with you each day/session as they are working directly with the children, do they have a daily diary listing those key points mentioned and do the staff pass on this info when ordering food/snacks? each staff member in the room working directly with the children should be signing each session to ensure they have read and understood who can and can't have what.

It sounds like the member of staff that gave the milk didn't know of the allergy? if this is the case then communication within the setting is poor and needs to be addressed to prevent any other incidents, management need to document how they have addressed this to show inspector should they call, would it be possible to have a notice board / chalk board as a visual reminder in the room / dining hall as another reminder?.

For what it's worth I have never had an inspector look in the kitchen, our cook was more than niffed as the inspector said they would pop in to have a chat but didn't in the end, what they will look at is safety, communication, sharing information and effective safeguards in my opinion it is managements responsibility to ensure this is happening, and staff responsibility to ensure that procedures are followed to the letter and to inform management if they are not effective or to suggest new / better procedures.

I am surprised that this has happened staff should know their children inside out and back to front, if this is not the case then again management need to address this allergy's can be life threatening and is a pretty much a basic with regard to childcare and sharing information with parents.

Did the staff member say how it happened?

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