What would you do? Childminder problems :(

[Cirque1]

I changed a few details to be less identifiable. But basically this happened to us today:
We live in the SouthEast. We have a 2 1/2 year old daughter and an almost 1 year old son.
They go to a childminder full-time (me and my husband both work full-time, we have no family nearby to help with childcare)
The childminder is actually two childminders, they are two sisters who live opposite each other in the same street.

This morning we kept our daughter at home, because she had diarrhoea. We did send our son in as he was fine.
This afternoon I got a sms saying our son had vomited, if we could please pick him up. Which surprised me, because my son was completely fine this morning.
Anyway, I drove there to pick my son up. When I came to the door, none of the childminders were there. The mother of the 2 sisters, who is in her 70s, was looking after the children and handed over my son to me. There were a few toddlers of other parents as well. The big car of one of the childminders was gone, which meant she was doing the school pickup ( I believe). I instinctively looked across the road, where the other childminder lives. I saw her exiting her house. I don't think she wanted to be seen by me, but when she noticed I saw her, she shouted over: "Oh, she (the woman in her 70s) is just putting on his ( my son's )jacket".
I fully expected her to come back to the house, but instead she walked off and left the road. I have got no idea where the hell she went ( was it to see her GP? Go shopping? Have her nails done? Meet a friend for a coffee?).It was obvious to me that she planned to go somewhere, because she had a jacket on and a handbag over her shoulder.
I noticed at home that my son isn't sick, he is a bit unsettled, but we fed him and gave him milk and he kept his food down.

To be absolutely clear, this isn't the first time that I noticed them having this arrangement: That none of the childminders is at home, while the older woman looks after the children. This usually happens around the time when they do the school pickup.

They do have an excuse that one of them is gone ( to do the school pickup), but shouldn't the other childminder be at home to look after the children? When we signed our contract we signed the contract that our children would be in the care of these two childminders, not in the care of extended family members.

This evening my husband and me thought we should text the childminders to ask what the name of their mother is and if she has a childminding qualification.
But then we realised it isn't a good idea. We have a nursery place for both children from the end of August, when my daughter turns 3. They have no places before that.
I called another nursery this evening to find out if they have any places now. They said they have a long waiting list.
Until August, we have no other childcare than this childminder and we rely on them. We have no family nearby. We can't afford to lose our jobs. We are absolutely screwed. We are angry and we feel they are not taking their responsibilities sincerely and cutting corners.
We don't feel like our children are 100 % safe.
But we have no other option than to keep sending them there. We can't let them know we're onto what they are doing otherwise they will find a way to terminate our contract.
If we make an official complaint, they will just deny that this is happening.
What would you do in our shoes? xx Thanks for any advice

I would absolutely be reporting them to ofsted, this is not acceptable. Does this woman have a dbs check? If they think this is acceptable then what else do they think is.

OP anyone living on your childminder's household should have them.

www.gov.uk/guidance/criminal-record-checks-for-childminders-and-childcare-workers

@Cirque1
I think you have your priorities wrong if you'd rather send them somewhere you think isn't safe rather than loose your job!!
My kids would totally be coming first!!

Plus how can these childminders "work together" but in 2 different houses - that doesn't make sense at all.

My childminder works with her husband but all in the same house and sometimes the pre-schoolers go on the school run and sometimes they stay with the other person - especially if it's really wet and cold which makes perfect sense!! This is a bit of a strange set up I'd be reporting it to offstead ASAP - worst case scenario take a sabbatical from work or look for a nursery slightly further away it's only until August.

Ex-childminder here. She could have registered the mother as an assistant but this should have been made clear to you. Assistants can be left alone in
for short periods only. Ratios must also be maintained. This means she must only have 3 under 5's if she's alone. I think they sound like they're cutting corners and I'd be concerned.

Just to clarify some things: They do the childminding in only 1 house. In the morning, one childminder comes to the other's house and they childmind there together. They do have a lot of children there, I suppose because they can double the ratios.

At no point it was mentioned to us they had an assistant.

There is other things as well that we don't like. One of the childminder's has a little dog that she brings over in the setting sometimes. We were never informed that there was a dog, my husband just kept on saying "The kids smell off dog" ( he has a very fine nose). We then kept on seeing this little dog in pictures and sometimes when we came to do the pickup. Then we put 2 and 2 together and realised it was their dog.

We believe that we should have been informed that there is a dog in the setting.

But oh well. I will try my best to arrange alternative childcare.

How about trying a pre school? Some do accept 2 year olds