Another fatal incident at nursery

What's it got to do with women? Unless they are single parents?

If there was a multitude of incidents then it's surely negligence rather than an innocent mistake.

It is irrelevant that nobody set out to hurt the child. Giving them something they are allergic to is serious negligence, and there should be consequences, like there were for Pret a Manger when that girl died after eating a poorly labelled sandwich. Unless you think all children with allergies shouldn't be part of mainstream education and kept at home until they reach adulthood, it's the responsibility of staff at nurseries and schools to keep them safe and take their medical issues seriously.

I can find specific death figures but there are about 75 serious childcare incidents reported to ofsted each week

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2641weqego.amp

There could be a multitude of reasons why the police and CPS think theres insufficient prospect of prosecution (the charge, I assume, would be manslaughter by gross negligence).

The Pret comparison doesn't hold, that was an entirely different offence relating to mislabelling

It is an devastating event that clearly should never happened but OPs generalisations and overexaggerations are just dreadful scaremongering

The thing is though, as an allergy parent you can't just never send your child to nursery or school. You have to trust the people looking after them. I work in a nursery and all staff have been well trained in dealing with allergies and using Epipens. We also have to do a Food Safety and Hygiene course yearly, which goes in to the best practices for dealing with allergies in some detail. There is no excuse for this tragic death.

Being poorly paid shouldn't be an excuse. I worked in a cafe so had to think about allergies, (CPIG!) and worked somewhere else where I had to think about age restricted products. Both things can lead to loss of life (we had some teenage boys going round all the places selling knives trying to buy some when I was working in that last place.)

I am a childminder and I think this sort of thing is less likely to happen with a cm. I am one constant in the setting and all info comes through and I liaise directly with parents. There's often a chain of info passed through nurseries. Also the staff turnover in some nurseries is horrific. Lunchtimes are busy and chaotic. It's not like that in my home where I plan and cook food for me and the three children that is suitable for all and we have a 'family' mealtime with me eating at the table with them. Ratios are also much higher in nurseries and this is likely to be stretched even further over lunchtimes.

I'm not saying mistakes don't happen but I think it's much reduced in a cm setting.

Agree. It may have been a mistake, but it's a mistake that killed a little boy. Absolutely heartbreaking 💔

The parents say there were a multitude of incidents and conversation with staff so it's terrible that the staff didn't put things in place to ensure the child was kept safe - even after multiple incidents. Having young staff is no excuse, management should have been responsible and overseeing.

Personally if i had a child with a potentially fatal allergy I wouldn't trust a nursery, especially if there had already been incidents. Having worked in nurseries and preschools though I would never have put my kids in one under 3 even without an allergy, they can't you what's going on there. It might be better than an abusive family home but what kind of bar is that - they're often far from ideal IME.

This was my thought too. Many jobs that involve producing, labelling and serving food are low paid, but it's still a reasonable expectation that every care should be taken to avoid contamination and protect those with allergies. In this case the allergy was known about and there was no reason for the child to die.

Someone should be held responsible. A child lost his life and it was totally preventable, nursery staff shouldn't get away with severe mistakes just because they aren't paid very well.

That's terrible and very sad. I also think if my child had an allergy whereby it could kill them if they ate the food, then I would not be able to send them to nursery where staff and catering changes can happen without you knowing.

Well, one reason I never have is because I need a service I can rely on. A child minder is a single human being who will fall ill without being able to provide cover, or take holidays when it is not a convenient time for me.

And I personally don't love the idea of one single person being in full control of multiple children, probably all different age groups with different needs. Different things work for different people.

Pret A Manger were prosecuted after a teenage girl with a sesame allergy died due to food not being labelled correctly, why can't this nursery be prosecuted? My mum works in a school where they're really hot on making sure kids with allergies aren't given food that can kill them.

Don’t be ridiculous. I hardly ever hear of fatal accidents at nursery. 🙄 And I’ve had 2 kids in nursery from 9 months and most of my friends are working parents who have had the same. Literally don’t know anyone who has had a child die in nursery. The most traumatic thing that happened to one of mine is that she tripped and fell into a patch of stinging nettles during forest school. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Do you know where children mostly die? At home. In accidents. In their sleep. And due to abuse and neglect. I don’t hear anyone advocating that all children be institutionalised to keep them safe just because the Daily Fail reported that an abusive dad killed his 2 year old.

This, it's pure privilege to declare that you dislike nursery's for under 3's both from the point that you clearly don't have the necessity to use them and also to not understand that for many children the nursery is the safe haven from a very chaotic/dangerous home life.

The death of a child in this context can never be considered an “honest mistake” absolutely appalling use of words.

I worked in a nursery where children were given the wrong food quite frequently, almost always by one particular elderly colleague who couldn’t be bothered to read labels.
So yes, this terribly sad situation does not surprise me.

Hmm, so the previous government changing the staff to child ratio for two year olds from 1:4 to 1:5 is having serious implications on quality of care? Who'd have thought it!

If you bring in changes that sound great because...you know 'free' childcare , but they lead to dangerous incidents because staff can't manage on those ratios, then they weren't a good idea.

I don't agree it's every other week but I was also personally not keen on nurseries for under threes and had a wonderful childminder.

I'd be willing to bet that children are statistically safer at nursey than at home sadly.

The new "free nursery places" have nothing to do with this tragic incident which happened before the scheme was introduced.

It would be far more useful to consider implementing simple additional measures for safety, such as a second pair of eyes check on allergy meals which could be more broadly applied than just in nurseries, restaurants. That could easily be implemented into Ofsted inspection requirements and the like.

They need to pay creche workers more and have more staff members.

I worked in a creche once. I left as i was so terrified that i might harm a child or cause harm. I was left alone in a room with a load of toddlers once. I had to bring toddlers to the bathroom over and over while standing at the door and trying to watch the rest. There is not enough staff