Nursery Injuries

[hb90]

Hi, My 15 month old has being going to nursery now since the age of 6 months old. He started walking at the age of 11 months. He has has a few accidents and bumps at nursery which is to be expected. However last week he fell over and as a result his front tooth has now gone back up into his gum and may never come back down or if it does it may be dead and fall out, another tooth has been pushed out of place but still stuck in the gum, his canine has fallen out. as it is his canine, the dentist needs to take out the canine on the other side to ensure it doesn't affect any movement of the rest of this teeth. So as a result of this fall he will be minus 3 teeth and 1 is in a funny place. Its such a shame and I understand accidents happen but where so we stand with seeing CCTV and making sure it gets put on record because at the moment there isn't anything on record to say how severe the fall was.

Thank you

Did they complete an accident form?
If there isn’t sufficient information on the accident form then you could ask for the manager to complete an investigation into what happened, when my son had a serious accident at nursery we ended up moving him immediately because I wasn’t satisfied with their responses and procedures, as part of the investigation I asked for a copy of the CCTV, thus wasn’t granted however they provided stills of the sequence of events.

I dont feel this report is extensive enough for the severity of the incident. They have completed forms for little bruises in more detail in the past...all this ond says is 'walking across the room and fell and hit his face on the table...parent called'. No mention of all the blood and crying and that they couldn't administer first aid due the how bad his mouth looked! We requested cctv but they have said no. It just doesn't sit well with me how brief the report is, therefore makes me question other things. What did you do to request stills?

Sorry but I think that is all you will get, it's not like any measure can be put in place to stop it from happening again. Its just one of those things an accident.

If you are happy with the nursery other than that I would try not to dwell on it.

We had similar in that they minimised the accident which was quite serious, he was allowed to play with a plastic tent pole outside after they had been building dens, he then tripped onto it and it went along the roof of his mouth and caused quite a significant cut and scraped the back of his throat, we were lucky it wasn’t a more serious injury.
I emailed my concerns over the handling of the incident to the manager, my husband wasn’t told the entire truth when he picked him up and was told “he’d caught his mouth on a toy” so I went into detail about all of this and said I wanted a full investigation done by her into what had happened and why there was discrepancies and also lack of detail in the accident report, I explained I understood that I couldn’t have a copy of the CCTV but I requested that I be allowed to view it(I dont think they can turn you down if you request to just view it but I’m not 100%) in the end she did me stills of it.
Feel free to PM if you want any more details.
I would say though that moving him was the best thing we could have done, the trust had gone and all the nightly things we’d been letting go at his old nursery were things that just haven’t happened at his new nursery.

niggly

When there is a major injury such as a tooth getting knocked out then they need to phone ofsted and report it themselves. I would be double checking for that.

Also I would request to see the CCTV and ask them what they would be doing to safeguard my child in the future.

Depending on their reactions and the severity of the injury I may also make a claim on thier insurance.

I work in a nursey and I am currently studying for my L3 in childcare. We spoke about injuries such as this and what to do.

You should also ask for a risk assessment and for proof that it has been written in their accident book.

My sons front adult front teeth didnt come through until he was 9. I would be very pissed off if he had to start primary school and had missing teeth until year 4.

This is a really terrible accident and for this to have happened they clearly haven’t been looking after him properly. This is exactly why I’m frightened to send my toddler to nursery. Has the dentist said whether this will affect his adult teeth? I’d be seeking legal advice if that’s the case.

Also the Data Protection Act and GDPR give you the right to see the data stored about you, including CCTV images. Threaten them with a solicitor if they don’t show you it. And act quickly or they’ll claim they no longer have it.

Fibib I agree that accidents will happen and sometimes they can’t be prevented however what would concern me about this is the lack of detail, that would make me think that the child wasn’t being supervised properly for someone to be able to give a detailed account of how it happened so “X was excited that it was lunch time and jumped up quickly and ran towards the tables, X lost their footing and slipped onto the table and hit their face straight onto the table” then a detailed account of how it was dealt with immediately after. That I could deal with as I’d have confidence in how they handled it, the explanation of running and fell just doesn’t cut it

The fact that they won't let you view the cctv makes me think it wasn't as described. Similar happened to my friend once they wouldn't let her view the cctv turns out the staff had lied

Thank you everyone, I think we will look into it further. I completely understand accidents happen and this is such an unfortunate accident. It's more the outcome and lack of report etc from the nursery. Dentist hasn't said about his adult teeth being affected yet, it's something we wont know until they start to come through. @Jobseeker19 makes me sad to think he will go the next 8 years with all these teeth missing!

This is as serious as a broken arm so I would push further. I'm not sure on appropriate next steps though, Ofsted might be able to help maybe?

Ensure that all communication is backed up in writing so there is no claim that things weren't mentioned etc.

Put in writing to them today that in compliance with data protection and GDPR, you wish to view the CCTV of the incident and formally request that the files are retained for future reference. See their copy of the report of ofsted or evidence that they reported the serious incident and that you will see them at 9am tomorrow. Do not take your son with you.