If you get a call from school to say child needs A&E

[Explaintome]

Would you still tale them even if you disagree?

Ds hurt his wrist in PE. I expect it hurt at the time and will be sore for a few days but he seems to have full mobility and there very little swelling.

If it was my wrist I'd wait and see. School insisted I should tale him to A&E. Personally I didn't really feel there was any reason for him not to be in school.

Anyway, I did take him because I was worried that going against their orders advice would look like neglect and as expected , there's nothing wrong and I've been made to feel a time waster.

Would you have had more confidence in your own judgement or gone along with the school, just in case?

Lots of reasons not least because if the school took him and didn't ask mum to do it, many parents would complain.

Add to it that would also need to take two members of staff for safeguarding reasons, and a lot of staff wouldn't be insured for taking a child in their car (because it would count as business use) before I've even started really thinking about it.

111 will get you a minor injuries appointment rather than having to sit in A&E for 8 hours.

This was a weird cultural difference I came across when I moved to Germany. DS1 had an accident at school and they called me to pick him up, I asked if they thought he needed the doctor and they looked at me like I had two heads and said I should decide.

I was used to the school making the judgement, not me!

I would suggest also that many primary school children would find going to hospital a less scary experience (not that hospitals are scary) if they went with a parent rather than a member of school staff they probably don't know.

First aider at school - if a student is telling us they cannot move something or there is any major concern we will request parents to collect because we do not have an x-ray machine or magic wand to confirm their level of injury.
We may recommend A&E but the second they are in your care the choice is yours.

As for the PP who suggested that school get an ambulance....have you any idea the wait times? We had a kid with a broken collar bone and the wait was about 8 hours despite being driving distance to hospital (this is just one of a number of examples), so yes it's easier, quicker, and less impactful to request parents collect and then take their child to A&E (if needed)

No.

I pick my child up and assess them myself and make a decision based on what I feel. Once that was A&E, once a GP appointment, once a pharmacist and once nothing.

We had one with a dislocated knee in local school recently.

Couldn't physically be moved.

The parent and HT sat with them for 6 hours until 7pm.

I think schools tend to be over cautious. I would have made my own judgement call tbh. I was once called to collect ds because "he's had a terrible bang to the head". I felt panicky wondering what had happened to him and bolted to get to him. Ran into school, ds was as happy as Larry, he'd bumped heads with a friend and had a bump no bigger than a bee sting when I was thinking fractured skull and concussion.

I think schools are damned if they do, damned if they don't!
Recently a child fell over, hurt their foot but it seemed more like a twisted ankle. Child said they were still in significant pain so parents were asked to collect and suggested child taken to a and e. Child walked out with slight limp, so parents didn't take to a and e. Next day child was uncomfortable, went to a and e, child had fractured their foot. Parents were sure school had over reacted first day but were negligent on the second day as child hadn't been immediately sorted out by school.

Anecdotally, my mum was a nurse and I broke my wrists 5 times during childhood. She only took me to a and e straight away for the two times it happened at school because she'd already been forced to come home from work. She never believed me as most of the times I didn't present as a typical break. Once I did as I'd almost passed out at school from the pain. The teachers had had to drag me down the corridor to the office to wait and kept talking in my face to stop me passing out.

DC’s school I find are really sensible - they do benefit from a school nurse though. I’ve had lots of calls over the years about bumped heads/minor playground scrapes/sickness, all of which I’ve been told we have no concerns, but been given (for example), head injury advice about monitoring for 24hrs.

On Thursday I had a call to say DS had hurt himself playing rugby, they suspected a break in his finger and recommended A&E for an X-Ray. They were absolutely right, although it was pretty clear when I collected him it was broken. I think we’re very lucky to have a school nurse.

Ds fell on the ice at primary school, who rang me to say he had fallen but as far as they were concerned he was being a drama queen to get out of doing any writing. When I picked him up at the end of school he was grey with pain, I took him straight to A & E who did an Xray, it was broken. I nearly ripped school a new one the day after & told them to ring me straight away to collect him after any accident & I would make the judgement as to whether he was fit to remain in school or not.

Good luck with that with my GP. After about an hour in a queue you'd get a reception person who would politely explain that they don't actually have have anyone medically trained to come on the phone just right now.

I would follow the school.

How often do they recommend a and e?

Someone has seen the accident and feels it needs checking out!

What harm is there in that?

I used to be a secondary first aider, it was lots of fun looking back. Sometimes a parent would ask me on the phone “do you think it looks broken” and I would just reply honestly from my own common sense perspective. It was entirely up to them if they wanted to take them to A and E or not, it was just my responsibility to do the first aid, record the accident and let the parents know.

There was one lad who’s nose was broken and I was fairly certain it was, I mean it was as flat as a pancake 🤦‍♀️ . Poor lad.