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?

I hate this. People assume sorbet is dairy free because it's sorbet, but the overwhelming majority have milk products in them. You can't even trust "free from" products because they may be free from gluten and milk but contain lupin and tree nuts for instance. If I had my way I'd create a colour code system (like the fats/salt/sugars we have on foods) that instantly gives a visual to what of the 14 allergens are in the product. It wouldn't take much. It would save so much scouring backs of packaging and ingredients hidden under flaps.

So sorry your children have had to feel excluded, we have had years of the same thing. Although awareness has increased in the last few years, and for dc2 primary school is fantastic, all of the parents are really considerate at parties and even the PTA asks for allergies in advance of events so nobody misses out.
Secondary school is another thing though and even after 7 years dc1’s form tutor would still bring chocolates in at Christmas and not remember she was allergic to dairy.

I agree. And Costa can afford to implement those changes and should. For all the time that they don't, they are letting their staff down

Yes this is what happens to my son. I managed to shake sense into the primary school eventually but teachers seem to think it's fun to hand out sweets /chocolate at secondary. He's too polite to say so he just passes them on to his friends but it makes him feel shit. Oh and his tutor who insists they have cake in tutor every Friday. Why, it's like people just can't wrap their head round any reward that isn't food based. And yet we have an obesity crisis!

Cafes and tearooms are not required to carry dairy-free milk or alternatives. Absolutely ridiculous to go to an establishment that primarily serves milk-based drinks when you have a severe milk allergy. I’m losing more sympathy the more of this thread I read, and I have a fatal nut allergy.

In my experience, children often bring in treats they can have and the teacher stores them for such occasions. Sure, it’s not ideal, but again, one has to take some ownership of the situation. By secondary school, the child should be well aware of what they can and cannot have and that the entire world doesn’t revolve around them.

There's still no need for sweets in school though. Not with an obesity problem and dental problems rising too.

Believe me, no child with allergies thinks the world revolves round them. But just as others have pointed out that hot chocolates from Costa aren't essential, nor is dishing out sweets in school. And schools have duties in terms of inclusion. It's a simple way teachers could easily change their practice that doesn't harm anyone and in fact almost certainly does some children (the ones who eat far too much sugar already) some good

There was SO much more to this!
apparently the staff member told the mum that ALL the hot chocolate contained milk - mum said that’s fine… (A quick google confirms that non of their hot choc is dairy free!)…
Mum took the poor child to dentist and this is where the young girl took a sip and had a severe reaction…. Mum refused to let dentist staff who had Adrenalin in house and the training, to inject her daughter… instead taking the daughter to a chemist to ask for a basic antihistamine! The chemist staff searched for an epipen (adrenaline) but there was non in stock!
m mum wasn’t carrying an epi-pen for her daughter even though she was also allergic to eggs and nuts!
It’s tragic… lots of things that shouldn’t have happened did happen… ultimately it wasn’t the hot chocolate that killed her but the delay in treatment!

Epipens don't always work even when administered in a timely fashion.
It's probable that adrenaline would have saved her at that point (the dentist) but it's not completely certain.

No the mother said she ordered soya milk
but
The staff member said she didn't mention soya milk but did say that she had a dairy allergy and that the jug needed to be washed out, and the staff member was confused and said something like you want me to wash the jug out? But hot chocolate contains milk.
And he said the mother said that that was fine.

At the dentist none of them realised that the reaction was as severe as it was, the dentist said they offered an epipen but the mother said they didn't!

The dentist also said that she was coughing up a white liquid but seemed fine and had even said she wanted to continue with the extraction that day. The dentist said there was no distress or panic at that point.

Then they headed to the pharmacist which is when it became severe. The pharamacist only had one epipen which was only half the dosage required for her weight. They looked for more but there was none.

A further tragic twist is that a customer in the pharmacist tried to resuscitate her and that customer had an epipen on her (because she had a nut allergy) but it seems that she didn't know that Hannah hadn't had a high enough dose because she didn't make the pharmacist aware that she had an epipen.

Well given there's so many discrepancies, it's not surprising something happened. Some of this stuff could be a misunderstanding, but some of it either happened or didn't. It's not just one point of failure from what it sounds like, still tragic for all involved

It sounds like very different things were heard and said. I do think when you're doing anything repetitive you sometimes keep going even with an odd sounding request like washing a jug and then putting milk back in it.

you’re unlucky of you have a food allergy. It’s not the worse thing in the world. It’s not even in the top group of the worst things you can have. It makes modern life more complicated. But life deals us a hand and we have to do our best.

I’m so tired of people and agencies being blamed for human error and parental error like this.

The mum was the best informed person here and the primary career for her daughter and unfortunately made a number of poor decisions that lead to her daughters death

she took her daughter to a drive through fast food place that serves almost entirely milk based drinks.

She then didn’t make good decisions around treatment, for completely understandable reasons, but which cost her daughters life

it’s incredibly unfortunate and i don’t actually blame the mum as it sounds mostly very unlucky.

It sounds like this lady possibly had a wheat allergy because of the dramatic collapse, but I find it worrying that you're providing a non-gluten containing menu but don't seem to realise that cross contamination is a huge issue for coeliacs too. Even a crumb, or a tiny bit of flour, can cause a cascade of reactions.

The fact you're saying things like
Turned out that floating particles landing on her food are enough to cause a severe reaction
I find worrying.

I mean...turned out? Shouldn't you have known this already if you're working in a food establishment with a ngci menu?

I accept that the kitchen is small and you had warned her, but sounds like there's an issue with staff training too.

That said, I'm sorry you were so worried and glad in all turned out okay.

This is interesting and I'm sure people don't know what this means as technically anyone can open a business. I was thinking perhaps places should be certified, but then it wouldn't have helped in this case anyway

I do know that but she didn't say she was allergic (we ask) or that she reacts like that. We can only go on the information given, and if we don't know, what are we supposed to do?

I don’t think anyone is saying that it is the worst thing in the world - except in this case. most allergy parents take on way more ‘responsibility’ than the average parent - if that even makes sense - a ridiculous statement really but just responding in kind.
I can never just let my child be collected to go home to another kids house without thinking/ leave them at a party/ choose any old summer camp - etc etc just a couple of day to day examples.
I don’t take my allergic DC to restaurants which serve a lot of their allergen - I personally have a very low risk threshold - this mum made a different choice that day but it was likely based off her prior experience and she was served the wrong milk regardless.
costa/ that server need not necessarily be blamed but there are definitely procedures they could have employed that would have averted this. Those should now be introduced.

Every reaction can be different though.
They might have been fine before with just making sure the jug was washed out, and checking it had no milk in it.
Then got a fatal reaction the next time.
If they didn't carry an epipen that would make sense.
I've got allergies and have gone with some to just having a bit of an eczema flare up to the next time lips swelling up.

she can’t go into coffee shops as the milk in the air makes her very unwell

This is really interesting, as I have had a milk allergy for years, not consumed any for over 20 years now.
Always been fine in coffee shops though, I'll have the iced tea if I go in with family.
Last time I was in though, I'd only been in about 5 minutes though and could feel my chest tightening.
Had to go outside, took me about half an hour to feel normal again as was getting short of breath.
I was stood near the steamers waiting for the order, wondered if that was it 😕

OK. How about if you have a serious food allergy only use these places if there really is no option. Risking a death just because someone fancies a drink strikes me as crazy. Accidents can happen for a vast range of reasons. But if folk want to take unnecessary risks for no good reason then so be it!

These small businesses stand to close down if they are sued for one error in which someone with serious allergy dies anyway. You cannot expect a small business to absorb the risks of big stock floating businesses like Starbucks, Zizzi's etc. Nor can you expect them to spend £££ outfitting their shops to be completely cross contamination safe. It's unfair to compare small cafes to huge chains.

Even Costa being sued here, they can absorb the cost.

They are willing to sue for human error over a cup of coffee prepared in a place virtually awash with milk, where human error stand to happen eventually due to a host of factors.

A reasonable person would assess the risk of being inadvertently served something containing milk (or breathing in milk protein) and say ' a coffee isn't worth it' that's taking responsibility for yourself and your illness.

Among other things I'm asthmatic. There's things I'd love to do sometimes but I weigh it up and say no. Not worth triggering an attack. The times I've been stupid enough to dismiss it, I pay later. That's on me.

I thought this was an inquest not a court case@DysonSphere?

As multiple allergy sufferers have said on here locking yourself away and never eating out isn't possible. We can all make judgements over whether this was a poor choice for a dairy allergy sufferer BUT either Costa say they serve dairy-free coffee or they don't.

The risk of cross- contamination was accepted by the mother. It was not your choice to make.

Costa were informed of the dairy allergy.

They still made a cup of hot chocolate with cow's milk.

They do bear responsibility for that.

Why is not eating out not an option? That's a bit of a funny thing to believe

you don’t have to eat in restaurants or Starbucks!

It’s life limiting yeah, but not life threatening.

or you can just accept a tiny risk of something bad happening

It seemed to be up for debate on here but the girl did have an epipen prescribed but did not have it with her. (From daily mail article today)

Not sure if it has been prescribed why she wouldn’t have accepted one from the dentist?