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?

The employee should have shown the mother the allergen book. It would have made things clearer. If the employee made the drink with the wrong milk, then I think she does have some culpability.

Tragic case.
I imagine it would be difficult for a server to remember the conversation around every order. If the girl had reacted there then obviously a different story. She might not have been questioned about it until much later.

She was in a dental practice where the staff are trained and have the drugs to deal with anaphylaxis. Why did the mum not alert the staff and instead take the girl to a pharmacy?

I don't think it would stand up in court. A person earning minimum wage with probably precarious working conditions can not be expected to look after people's health. Even with the best care taken there's always human error and cross contamination. For all we know the server made it with part milk but the nozzle of the coffee machine had just been used for cows milk. Do you expect them to sterilise the machine between every drink?

It’s really not possible to never eat anything outside of your own home or take any risk of allergen exposure. I mean it is, but that means a person can never leave their home for longer than they can pack their food. It means a person can’t really attend school or have a job because of the risk of exposure. It means becoming a recluse.

there has to be balance. We have to be members of society. Society needs to function in a way that lets us join the world with reasonable risk.

them people with allergies have to make smart choices.
carrying epipens of they are available is a necessity. Plus antihistamines. It’s not one or the other.

. I do go to coffee shops, but not during pumpkin spice season because the odds of a cinnamon cross contamination are just too high.

I try only go to new restaurants at slow times. If I find myself in a situation where I have to order food or drink and I don’t have confidence, I order something very likely to be safe. I eat so many Caesar salads without croutons that I have come to loathe them, but they are widely available and never allergenic for me. Prepackaged for me does not guarantee safe because labeling laws are awful. Companies get to hide all sorts of allergens under words like “spices” and “flavor”.

I also take test bites where I touch a tiny drop or lick the food and wait to see what happens. I might still react, but a smaller dose can be easier to treat.

Agreed.

My LO has an intolerance and Costa are probably the only place we felt safe taking them. They get the allergen guide our all staff are allergy trained and they use separate utensils and equipment for milk. Prior to this if my child had a serious allergy I would have taken them there.

There's no excuse if someone has an allergy and asks for changes and you don't do it then you are culpable. A customer died after she served her no one else. She worked there for 8 months taking orders and fulfilling them when a fuckup happens it's not her fault. I am sure a takeaway shop owner was prosecuted for the exact same thing not following correct procedures when someone has an allergy.

Oh wow

My DC had to eat their own lunch from home on a separate table at primary school. You can't pick and choose when you stop breathing if exposed to something. You can have a job, life a life and exist with life threatening allergies, it is just a diffferent life in some respects.

Mitigations at primary school involved everyone having to wash their hands before and after lunch (not a bad thing) and the school hall tables and chairs being wiped after each session.

If my DC had 'touched a tiny drop or licked the food' they would have had a trip to hospital with lights on.

So so sad but I have to say if the allergy was that severe then anytime eating out would be a hard no on any kind of milk. I'm not at all saying it's the parent's fault, it's a horrible tragedy and I don't think anybody is to blame.

Everybody makes mistakes. Especially overworked and underpaid service personnel. Such a devastating story.

There is another article somewhere which states that a dental nurse offered use of an epipen but the mum declined and took her daughter to a pharmacy for anti histamines. I can only assume the mum didn't realise how severe the reaction was - perhaps her daughter hadn't gone into anaphylactic shock before, because the article stated that the girl could have survived had the adrenaline been administered.

No. You can’t make a definitive statement about every single hot choc powder in retail outlets being dairy free. Some are dairy free, and some are not. It depends on the retailer/owner what they routinely use

This (Daily Mail - sorry) article, seems to give more of the verbatim from the inquest questioning and it appears that the server was (a) told about the dairy allergy by the Mum (b) did not hear the Mum say the words soya, and thought the order was for a dairy hot chocolate (c) was told by the Mum to wash out the jug due to the dairy allergy (d) questioned the Mum on the logic of just washing out the jug given it was a dairy hot chocolate (e) was told by the Mum that just washing out the jug was sufficient. Even disregarding the not following procedures with the allergy book, I think anyone (whatever their salary) in those circumstances should have suspected a miscommunication and taken no chances (ultimately refusing to serve if necessary)

Costa barista who served cow's milk to girl, 13, with severe dairy allergy 'sometimes' could not understand customers from behind Perspex screen of till, inquest hears | Daily Mail Online

The rise in allergies and tragic incidents like this highlight the need for inclusion of epipens in first aid kits as standard.

Our dd outgrew her allergy but we keep 2 x ones in case there is an accident in our house. Our friend who is a dr does the same and recommended we keep the pens.

I firmly believe they should be in first aid boxes / kept in schools and food outlets especially with an uptick in allergies.

This thread is really interesting as my youngest has severe allergies and the balance parents have to walk is something i have started thinking about.

THIS! Where is the line? Are they meant to grow and make everything they consume? That’s madness.
if we can trust them not to put literal poison in, we should trust them to avoid allergens. It’s so serious and awful that they should be made to live like this. Heartbreaking.

It's not clear whether this was actually human error - that was out of control, or a failure of the staff member to a) understand what was required and b) follow the appropriate procedure.

However, in the BBC article, the barista
a) Admits that she didn't show the allergen book - as PP said. This is a clear breach of procedure
b) Claims that she pointed out the hot chocolate drink was 'made from milk'
What was the relevance of b) ? Of course the customer knew it contained milk that's why soy was requested as a substitute.

Of course we don't know the full facts but it looks like the barista didn't appear to understand what was actually required.

Mystery shopper here.

I have been asked to mystery shop various outlets recently with a specific focus on allergies and ingredients. I suspect various large companies of being completely negligent in their training and would like to recount a couple of examples. (None of these involve milk or Costa).

me, standing in front of an ice cream display with pistachio ice cream clearly labelled - my friend has a nut allergy. Can you tell me if she should be avoiding any of your ice creams?

member of staff (MOS) - all our ice creams are fine for her to eat.

me - that ice cream there, what does that contain?

MOS - hazelnuts, [various other things]

me - oh. So that is just hazelnut flavouring, not real NUTS?

MOS (thoughtfully) - ooooo......

(In this example, and various others, it seemed to me that MOS believed that nut allergy = peanut allergy and nothing else.)

Example 2

me - my friend is Muslim. Could you tell me which of your hot slices are halal?

MOS - they all are

me - oh good. I'll take the cheese and bacon one.

MOS - packages up cheese and bacon slice with no further comment. (Yes, it was real bacon from a real pig).

Example 3 - a good one

me - can you tell me how you are sure your cakes are gluten free and don't get cross-contaminated with the ordinary ones?

MOS - our GF cakes are cooked in a separate bakery, sealed into their packaging, and not opened until the customer buys and opens them.

I saw this yesterday. ts a tragedy. But no i absolutely dont think the book should be thrown at the staff. In a busy place human error must be a factor. It's not a doctor or other highly trained professional making a mistake. It's young not very well paid people. If allergies are so severe as to cause death I don't think a cafe or restaurant can be held responsible.

Effectively yes... If it's a life threatening allergy to a common foodstuff then that's the situation. There's always going to be a risk of cross contamination in a busy kitchen, or simply a mistake. Restaurants will (or should) say what the ingredients are but there's usually going to be a small print somewhere that they can't guarantee no cross contamination.

Having eaten out with people with allergies, it's common for mistakes to be made on both sides. My friend with a (luckily non life threatening so far) peanut allergy has ordered food that had peanuts in the name of the dish. And also been served something with peanuts in having been told it was peanut free. And when my SIL was cutting out soy and dairy while breastfeeding it was surprising how even the big chains couldn't actually supply allergy information that was accurate. For example she was served brioche that contained both soy and dairy despite specifying she wanted to avoid these things.

You'd be mad to rely on someone else checking on your behalf if it was a matter of life and death. Would you step onto a zebra crossing without checking for traffic? It's the same thing. Only it's more acceptable to run someone over by accident than to give them milk by accident. So we check before crossing the road.

They should be in schools and first aid kits. But are you not aware there is a limited supply? You shouldn't be refilling prescriptions if you no longer need them.

And doctors makes mistakes as well. Medical mistakes are quite common even in specialists settings.

What does ‘responsible’ and ‘culpable’ for the barista look like here. They are guilty of manslaughter? They are fired? They are disciplined?

I don’t see how any of that stacks up legally in a contract and no one would do the job if it did. Unlike a production line, barista’s are single points of failure.

I agree with this especially as the mother said that she thought that the member of staff might not have understood first time.

Surely, you just wouldn't take the risk.

There was also a tragic case on tv about a young guy who ordered a takeaway, explained his allergy but died because the food was contaminated.

Yes, eating out and having take aways is nice, but I wouldn't do it if my life was at risk.

I do not have any allergies, but I always worry about getting food poisoning when eating out so I only ever eat food that has been thoroughly cooked.

I love salads but would only ever eat them at home as it is just too risky. Staff in kitchens are often rushed off their feet. How easy would it be to use the knife that has just been used to cut raw meet to cut up a cucumber.

I remember the case of a boy who died in the US because a fast food restaurant used the same knife on raw meat and on salad.

I don't think it's been established that she "put milk in the drink". You're assuming that because of what happened next, but I don't think there has been any evidence (yet) to confirm it. We've been drip-fed info from an inquest ... we don't know the full story yet. Looking at Costa's allergy info they make it clear that their soya hot chocolate could be cross-contaminated: https://www.costa.co.uk/docs/store-allergen-guide.pdf

Unless there is a sample of the drink, or the second barista (who actually made the drink) confirms milk was used instead of soya, we may never know for sure.