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?

If she's been in other coffee shops/Costas and been able to make herself understood and allergy information discussed, then why shouldn't she expect the same at a different shop?

You can't expect someone with an allergy never to eat/drink anything other than that they've made themselves for life, can you?

Sadly mum is at fault. She left it way too long to seek medical attention.

The barista sounds daft as a brush.

Buy everything indicates that if the mother HAD been shown the allergy book, she’d still have said it was fine.

Awful thing to happen but, as other people have said, if you or your child have an anaphylactic allergy to a foodstuff you steer well clear of shops who use it in 95% or the things they sell, it is personally/parentally negligent to do otherwise .

I don't mean to sound insensitive - it is tragic and awful what has happened, and my sympathies go to the family - but I'm a little confused about having hot chocolate before a dentist appointment.

You have 2 threads posted a minute apart about the same thing

If you’re working in an environment where a mistake could kill someone, then I think you need to speak fluent English and be fully able to communicate. The person shouldn’t have been hired if they were unable to communicate at the level required for safety. Honestly I think food and drink servers should be required to have a food safety qualifications including allergies.

Very sad loss of a young child and a tragedy for the family.

Unfortunately it seems like dicing with death to go to Costa if you have a severe milk allergy. Also why on earth did the mum refuse the epi pen? Sadly I think ultimately it's a matter of personal responsibility gone awry.

I think if you’ve got a severe dairy allergy you shouldn’t order anything in a coffee shop, I’ve got a nut allergy and I sometimes have to go without, it’s not worth the risk.

I dont think that someone with such severe allergies can risk eating pre prepared food Im afraid. Lots of people disagree with this

However, like other posters Im a bit sick of seeing 'you cant expect someone on minimum wage to do x, y, z'

I dont agree in this case as I say that this is something that can be relied on in any cafe but generally speaking, outside of this, someone is paid to do a job, so do the job.

Are we saying all those people who provide intimate care, health care, social care who are on minimum wage can just do a crap job then? How did it come about that if you're on a low wage I cant expect you to do your job?

i have no idea for sure if Costa have different machines for different milks to avoid cross contamination. However the article said the mum asked for the wand to be extra cleaned so I suspect they don’t have different machines and the mum knew this.

my Dd has coeliac disease and since Starbucks started using oat milk a lot of coeliacs won’t use Starbucks anymore because of the risk of cross contamination from the oat milk. Blasting hot steam through the wand will not always remove all particles I guess. And these are people who aren’t going to die from cross contamination but still don’t want to take the small risk of being sick. Which i understand.

so to me it seems wild that someone with such a bad allergy would take such a risk. I wonder if she’d never had such a bad reaction before and if they hadn’t realised it could be so bad. The article I read said the mum had told the staff about her daughter’s intolerance. Not sure if that was the mums language or the newspaper. Because it was more than an intolerance! But maybe previous reactions had been more along intolerance lines?

There are faults on both sides here mum didn't realise that there was milk in the powder the server wasn't clear and didn't follow procedure mum also didn't think it was all that serious or she would have taken the epipen option

To me, from reading the article, it sounds like the server person has messed up and knows it and that's why she's not making sense about it all

To me, from reading the article, it sounds like the server person has messed up and knows it and that's why she's not making sense about it all

I'm confused as to how the error occurred. It sounds like the server did take the order correctly and her only "error" was not showing the mum the allergy book. If the server had already explained that the chocolate powder did contain milk then I don't see how her showing the mum the book would have changed anything.

If the drink was served with soya milk with the equipment washed correctly then I don't see how the staff member is at fault really. If the girl died due to the milk in the hot chocolate powder then how can Costa be at fault?

It makes no sense that the mum refused an epipen also.

A hot chocolate, in a cafe where almost every drink contains dairy, is a risk when you have a dairy allergy. Especially if you’re not carrying a epi pen. Surely the hot chocolate powder, or whatever they use as the chocolate part of the drink, would also contain milk.

@Turophilic

Playing devil's advocate do we say that if there is a non negligible chance of error do we then have to turn all responsibility of checking for allergens to the allergic individual (especially with such horrendous circumstances)?

Is this not saying in a way there can be gaps in the processes in food production that means if you have an allergen you should avoid a 'normal' life by not fully trusting cafes etc.?

So the general logic I’m reading here is if you have a food allergy you shouldn’t eat out and if you die then you’re to blame..?

Minimum wage...

Most fast food providers and cheap restaurants are the same and would close if broken English is a problem.
Britain doesn't have a lot of unemployed well-qualified people hanging around willing to work on Costa or McD conditions.

This is what I was thinking and that even if made with soya milk, it would still contain cow milk from the powder.

They were offered an Epi pen at the dentists, which could have saved the child’s life. But the mother refused and left.

It sounds like the staff member didn't really understand what she was being asked for and didn't know what she was doing. To hear 'my daughter has a dairy allergy' and then make two dairy milk drinks without thinking 'huh' and questioning herself suggests she didn't understand either the language being used or the seriousness of a dairy allergy. She needed an interpreter in court, and though that doesn't mean she doesn't speak conversational English, it does raise questions about what she understood. In any case she was remiss, absolutely remiss not to clarify the type of milk they wanted after acknowledging she heard 'my daughter has a dairy allergy' and she didn't follow procedures which she would have been trained in. Food safety is a basic standard for anyone working in food prep. She was liable to a degree, minimum wage or not.

No the Costa hot chocolate powder doesn’t have milk as an ingredient. Presumably the girl has had it lots of times with soya milk and has been fine. The issue is that the barista used cows milk.

Surely if your child had such a severe allergy you would try it before they did as although you asked you can never be sure what is served.

No, Cadbury hot chocolate powder is dairy free, and the one they use in Caffè Nero is, I'd assume Costa is also dairy free.