Flu vaccination - why bother to get consent? (edited by MNHQ at request of the OP)

Ok you mention the TA said he had it, are they sure he definitely did and they didn't just assume? Many children will have had it so they might have simply assumed he did too. Although if non verbal, do they not have a 1:1?

Like another poster, in our school only the children with consent go to the room with the nurses and as a parent an email is sent confirming that the vaccine has been given at the end of the day.

Do you have anyone else who may have filled out the consent form instead? Not sure if you have a partner or perhaps a grandparent who does the school run?

We were given the list of consenting children once the nurses arrived. We had no idea up until that point. I guess different trusts do it different ways

@Emeraldiisland What happened when you raised this today?

Please do take this up with the school. It could happen again with terrible consequences.

I would confirm with the school office that the TA was correct, that she hadn’t just assumed he’d had it because everyone else did but she was t actually there.

Then, if it’s confirmed that he had it, I’d hit the fucking roof. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro vaccine, my kids have just had theirs. But this would be a major fuck up and needs to be dealt with accordingly.

Did he definitely have it? As in did the TA witness it?

or did she hand him over saying “oh they all had their flu sniff today” type thing?

At our school (Scotland tho so poss different) it’s the school nursing team that do the consents and nothing to do with the school administration. So if you establish that he did have it, then find out who’s dropped the ball here.

Finally please feed back to the school that their codes thingy doesn’t work for everyone - someone probably thinks they are being super clever and forgetting not everyone will get it to work.

@Emeraldiisland it's not about you lying or not, it's the fact that this is such a serious incident that needs to be escalated that we ask further questions hoping for you that is was a just a misunderstanding. Don't get me wrong.

This shouldn’t have happened so needs investigating. Ask school for the contact details of the immunisation team. I am an immunisation nurse working in a team delivering school flu vaccinations. Our process involves parents completing the online consent form (or not). Both the nurses and the admin team can see the list of consents and non consents prior to the session and also on the day. We have red and green highlighted on the names for non consent and consent. We triage any medical queries. On the day ws have stick on ID labels printed off of the positive consents. Teacher or TA places the label on the child’s jumper in class. The children come down and go to our admin team desk to register. If there is no consent the child goes back to class. The children with consents then come to the nurses and we check there is consent on our laptops. We also ask the child their name and if they can’t answer e.g at age 4 we ask the teacher or staff member to confirm their name.

Has he had the vaccine or the nasal? Is it possible that he could have made it up if he's seen other kids have it? I've consented recently for my lo to get the nasal flu but more recently a local dentist visited and we even had to consent that so my child could have his teeth checked and there were some children who were upset in their class that they weren't allowed the check up because their parents forgot to consent so my school takes this very seriously. I'm not saying it's not possible but this sounds very dangerous.

Wow that’s bad

a couple of years ago my son forgot to hand in his form (he was 13/14) and school phoned me to get consent verbally.

Spot on. Major failure by the health team and school.

This is a disgrace and incredibly dangerous - what if your DS had an allergy? Formal complaint ASAP OP - it needs to be investigated as this is against the law. At age 4 he needs parental consent for elective treatment.

I have done the same. You log into a portal to download the list of consents, sign a waiver to state whether consent has been withdrawn and your list is given to vaccination team (using their data).
The nursing team are then checking consent status at point of vaccination. This is a nursing team error not a school admin error.

The letter we had from school made it very clear that no response does not equal no consent and you must reply to state no consent if that’s what you want
i did wonder how that actually works, as I’d be surprised if they can give it without actual consent but that seemed to be what was suggested

Well, I would be rather surprised if a 3-4 stage process of independently checking and rechecking for parental consent has failed at every single stage. But I'm sure that my - misgivings - will be completely cast asunder by the significant press coverage when the school nursing service is in the news making a full public apology/paying a significant sum in compensation/the entire team is barred from practise/the service in the OP's area is closed with immediate effect and the person in charge is forced to resign as the facts are proven in court.

I’m a TA and I go with the children to have the flu vaccine. My own child has never had it and never will have it (yes I feel very strongly about it).
The staff should do a check with each child on the list which states which children have had consent. They check the dob, name etc and mother's name (yes even for 4 year olds!). We are only allowed to take the children who have consent. If there is an issue, the parent of the child is contacted for example we have a child whose parent is undergoing chemo but had given consent.
Both the school staff and the nurses administering it have massively fucked and I would be absolutely raging if that was my child.

The nurses won't share this info with teachers at my school. We line all the children up and they are checked for consent by the nurse when they reach the front of the line. It is made very clear to us that it is not for the school to be involved, they are simply using our school as a premises in the same way the midwife team uses the leisure centre.

We can also not vaccinate a child in the community who is school age until the full school scheme is over, but how would they know if he was on meds, increased wheeze and use of blue inhaler is contraindicated, anaphylaxis to egg too, not to mention it has pork gelatine in, so if you didn’t want it for any reason it would be too late, I’ve been phoned by the nurses before to check these things as I’d forgotten to give my son his consent form back, they can’t just vaccinate with no info am quite shocked, I’m so careful in my role to make sure children get the correct vaccine etc

My son is non consent for flu vaccine, only because he is also asd and will not let them near him and the last thing I want is him being traumatised by some well meaning nurse trying to cajole him along and pushing him into it, so he’s a no, school have been told he is to go nowhere near the vaccine area on those days. Surely the teacher knew he was not for vaccination? I vaccinate babies so parents are there, couldn’t do schools, my son could do with getting his due to asthma etc but he’s too old to hold these days so he votes with his feet, utterly frustrating.

complain op, should’ve never happened. Sorry it did. Hope your son is ok

This is a huge medicolegal fuck up.

This happened to DS in primary. I'd not consented due to advice from his audiologist about it aggravating his glue ear but they gave it to him by mistake. Despite me being fairly ok about it, it was a HUGE deal, had to be escalated to national level I had calls from all sorts of PHE super senior NHS managers, was advised I could take legal action if I wanted. The (usually very chilled) Deputy Head looked like he might throw up when he had to tell me what had happened, the staff were all absolutely terrified of the consequences. Thankfully, DS was fine, but they had no idea if he was allergic, it is a very serious balls up and they should be grovelling and carrying out a full investigation.