Request for full medical history from caterers

[sootballs]

My dd starts school in September. She has longstanding dairy and soya intolerances and while we continue to do regular trials she is showing no sign of outgrowing it. We have no dietician now as we were discharged, but this is included in her EHCP (statement) for school.

We had a parents evening last night and we were told by the outsourced catering company they could arrange suitable meals but that they would require a full medical history or a copy of the EHCP to go ahead with providing meals.

Because of her complex needs then I feel this is too much information to hand over but I am happy to get the relevant section copied or a letter from our GP or Paed.

Can anyone advise? I'm not usually precious but for dd 'full medical history' is several folders long!

[addictedtosugar]

I'd get a relevent letter from a dietician, or the results of her trials, and let them have that, but not the rest: they have no need for it!
Why do they need proof that she needs to be dairy and soya free anyway? Never heard of that before.

[catsrus]

Ask who their data protection / compliance officer is and point out that under the data protection act this would clearly be in breach of principles 2 and 3. Data requested must be relevant and not excessive - this request is clearly excessive.

"Everyone responsible for using data has to follow strict rules called ‘data protection principles’. They must make sure the information is: ...

• used for limited, specifically stated purposes
  
• used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not excessive"
  

www.gov.uk/data-protection/the-data-protection-act

Health data is particularly sensitive and there are separate laws protecting this - do they have the processes in place to comply with all of the legislation concerning health data?

[Sunflower123456]

Our DD also has dairy and soya intolerances, and she had mild eczema before she moved to a new (private) school. In her first state school, she was able to take carefully prepared and controlled home packed lunches, but the private school wouldn't allow it. We informed the school canteen manager about our DD's dietary needs, and he said he would provide especially prepared meals for her. However, we found all he did was to take away dairy and soya contents in standard meals, so our DD ended up eating sub-standard meals, eg plain pasta. Our DD's eczema changed from mild to severe for the first time, after two terms eating the school canteen meals. We found she was sometimes given butter and the margarin she was given regularly contained butter milk (dairy). Again we requested the private school to allow our DD to bring home packed lunches, and even with a long letter from our GP, the HT refused. The HT insisted that we must have our DD professionally tested, before she would consider it. We had booked an hospital test beforehand, but there was a 6 months waiting list. So in the end, we moved our DD back to a state school, where she could bring home packed lunches again. Her skin improvement was almost immediate, and her eczema is now almost gone. Even the hospital specialists were surprised, and said she's now like a new girl. The test they made confirmed our DD is sensitive to dairy and soya, which we knew already.

Sorry for the long story, but check beforehand if your school would allow your DD to bring home packed lunches. I would hate to see another child go through the nightmare we experienced.

[ouryve]

DS1 has specific problems with cheese and chocolate (migraine triggers) - we only had a couple of sessions with a consultant paediatrician of support with an elimination diet to pin down the problem foods before being discharged, and the discharge letter, which outlined that specific problem, was sufficient to put on his school records.

[DeeWe]

If it's really several folders long I would be tempted to produce them just to see their face. You can offer to do a test to check they're really reading all of it.

However I suspect what they mean is they want a letter from a medical person stating exactly what the allergies are.
They may have had issues before with parents sending in preferences rather than actual allergies, but it seems a heavy handed way of going at it.