Milk allergy death- should the book be thrown at the staff involved?

[mids2019]

....or if you are minimum wage staff member working in a stressed environment without English as a first language there should be leniency. Doctors are paid for life and death decisions but are Costa staff?

Dairy allergies are usually from consumption. And yes it's everywhere. Whey powder is in so much food these days as it's a cheap filler, even crisps have it in.

And the mum made that choice to decide that was ok, so surely the mum has to accept some responsibility here

A child has died and people are questioning why she was drinking a hot chocolate before her dental appointment?!

I’m surprised no one has said that one hot chocolate would be enough for a family of four, it is mumsnet afterall.

Milk allergies are the leading cause of fatal reactions in children.

A lot of people assume that only nut or peanut allergies are serious, but anything can be an allergen and any allergen can cause a fatal reaction. If someone informs you of an allergy you should always assume a trace amount would be life threatening unless they very specifically tell you otherwise.

The poor mum doesn't 'have to accept' anything. This isn't a trial, it is an inquest to establish what went wrong and what can be put in place to prevent this happening again. She'd clearly managed her daughter's allergies just fine for the previous 13 years.

I don’t see how this is relevant or indicative of anything? She could have been intending to brush her teeth just before the appointment. Or even if she wasn’t, I don’t think it is fair to infer anything from it.

It's relevant to what I describe as the strangeness of the incident (imo). I wasn't inferring anything beyond the fact it seemed a bit of a strange choice.

I think this is a situation where it sounds questionable decisions were made by more than just one person.

The mother was too blase. If an allergy is that severe I would never walk in a shop that has its primary ingredient as milk. I have a friend that won’t eat out as her nut allergy is so severe she just doesn’t take the risk.

Wow

So you wouldn’t walk into a supermarket?

They should be charged with manslaughter by gross negligence and whoever is in charge charged vicariously too.

Didn’t the coroner say she ‘may’ have put cow’s milk in. It doesn’t seem clear that she did.

Suspect that would be a bit of a reach, at least as far as the server is involved.

I do not have compassion for adults that put children in death threat situations.

Not sure why MN deleted my comment.
Any other person caring for a child and ordering a child with life threathening alergy an open cup drink would be crucified on MN.

This thread is showing me that so much more work needs to be done around allergen awareness. How many people out there are organising their kids parties or having friends round and not really understanding when someone is telling them they have an allergy?

There are lots of things that could have been different here. One is that one epi-pen dose isn't always enough for starters, and two doses could have safely been given. This is something that it would be great for chemists to know- or the dentist could have also had them and used them- larger doses are often required once anaphylaxis sets in.

Dentists have a lot of medical training. I don't know why the mother would leave the dentist's premises. He offered a (quick acting) EpiPen which was the right action.

Why did the mother think she knew better?

The dentist would have probably been able to help and if not, know when to call an ambulance for the child.

In other words, they were at a medical place already. Why leave?

You mean mum who put child in such high risk situation because she wanted branded drink?

Schools should have allergen friendly menus, and why should any child be excluded due to something out of their control?

I'm sceptical that our labour force would be willing and able to staff the hospitality sector at current size if that were required. There are already significant staff shortages. You may prefer a smaller sector of course.

The school are legally obliged to provide that information. Not doing so is a huge red flag about the school in general.

Obviously not the point of the thread but I do wish people would stop referring to "minimum wage staff" like we're some kind of under class of thickos....

I can see how this happened, sadly.

Costa Coffee (or any coffee shop) is a busy and noisy environment. The Mum was likely in a hurry, fitting in a hot chocolate before the appointment (the fact that she didn't start drinking it until she was at the dental surgery means that it was served shortly before arriving). She said 'I'll have two soya hot chocolates but the jug needs to be washed out because of allergies'. The server heard 'hot chocolate', then got focused on "Why would you want the jug washed out if you're having milk in your hot chocolate??". The Mum was probably used to asking for it, knew she had asked for it, so thought the server was saying 'the jug is used for normal milk', but was happy with washing it out as a protective measure, so reassured the server that she understood and was happy.

Presumably, the cows milk was used but the Mum didn't see that (I always watch them prepare my drink) because the daughter was telling her off for 'being fussy'. I presume, also, that a 'S' or 'Soya' wasn't written on the lid (because the soya milk order hadn't been registered) but the Mum didn't notice that, or didn't think it was a problem.

The dental surgery offered the epi-pen, but the Mum had obviously never needed one before and perhaps didn't register the severity of the reaction. Once at the pharmacy, it was too little too late.

I don't think the server is fully to blame here. In hindsight it's an extraordinary risk for the mother to take - I always cringe a bit when I see baristas wiping the frother with the same crusty old cloth time and again - regardless of what milk was used, there was bound to be cross contamination.

I'm not sure that even the allergy book would have helped, because fundamentally, the mother was confident that soya milk was being used, and the server was confident that cows milk was being used, so if the mother had looked at the book and said 'yes that's fine...', they would have been confirming different things.

This. If the school refused that information it needs taking to Ofsted and any other channel it can go to.