Well you are, if you expect First Aid from a soft play centre!!!

[Lucyellensmum100]

If you take your child to a soft play centre, they have no legal obligation whatsoever to provide first aid if your child injures itself. This from the Environmental health and safety officer at my local council.

Thankfully though, most places would probably rush to assist you. I wont name names because that would be wrong but my child was injured in a soft play centre in Herne Bay and we were offered no assistance or first aid equipment, in terms of towels to stem blood flow etc, someone to calm me and my daughter down because i was quite frankly in an total panic. They couldnt even tell me where the local Minor injuries unit was.

I reported this to the local authorities and they have said that the only come back i have is to file a civil case, which i dont want to do, the accident wasn't their fault, but some concern would have been nice. They have upheld the complaint in terms of them sending feedback to the place but can take no action as they have acted within the law - surely this can't be right???

Apparently the responsibility lies with the parents! well yes, of course it does, but i don't carry a first aid box around with me - i had to go to the toilets to try and find something to stem the blood flow (my DD had bitten through her tongue) I amd incredulous that this is apparently OK.

Mumsnet is becoming a nasty, horrible place. I've thought it for a while. I'm now convinced. Had enough of the lot of you.

Lucyellensmum your understandably very upset about the incident but name calling isn't really helping your cause.

REvolting, its not really, just a few idiots i think - im upest and angry for my daughter so i apologise if i defended myself in a vociferous manner when people twisted my words and made a joke out of a serious injury that my daughter sustained. On my other thread i have received lots of support and well wishes for my DD, who i should say has just eaten a jam tart and a chocolate biscuit - first bit of food in three days!!! wahoooo so im feeling much happier now and idiotic comments aren't quite so hurtful, i just see them for what they are.

Am I just overly sleep deprived, or is there already another thread about this? Why post twice?

I didn't say you were rude .

I said if you were like you are here to the owner, I'm not surprised he was rude to you.

Now, who's not reading the post correctly

commanderShepard

Attention seeking maybe?

Forgetting staff for a second, did no one else offer to help? In these situations it suprises me how the expectation for staff to help seems to be the main thing that people focus on. Surely other parents are highly likely to be carrying something that could help or could do something to help? Or is it a case of 'it's okay, the staff can deal with x'.

AFAIR the Op started a thread asking for advice about how to complain about the soft play centre.

She's now started this one to update with the outcome.

So what? Are you the thread police? Who gives a fuck how many times someone starts a thread about the same incident if they're concerning completely different aspects of said incident?

Crazy, yes, other people helped - another mother (who's son was the cause of the injury actually) asked for something cold to put on it, i was grateful and thanked her. Another woman chased me down the road having located the MI unit on her mobile phone for me and offered me a lift, i thanked her and said that my DP would be there in a few minutes.

Tyranno - that was exactly it - i did just want this thread to be a general thread about being surprised about not being able to expect first aid, at a soft play center. I made the point of the fact that it COULD have been more serious than it was (it was serious enough for me though, the worst thing ive had to deal with as a parent so far, i cant imagine how parents cope when their children have life threatening injuries, it makes me feel ill just thinking about it).
People seemed to think i was saying my DDs injury was life threatening, when i clearly wasn't! Hey ho. Id quite like there to be first aid provision for a grazed knee actually.

Reminds me of when i was on holiday in greece one, my older DD had a horrible insect bite and the resturant owner noticed this, went off and got her some anti-histamine cream, GAVE us pretty much the whole tube, took DD off to show her his terapins (with me inwardly cringing at the thought of salmonella! ) and genuinely cared that she had a nasty bite. He was a lovely man.

oh and Commander - you clearly are sleeping on the job, i have two other threads about this incident actually. I likes attention i do.

this is why I stay the fuck away from AIBU.

Name calling isn't on.

Neither is goading the OP who is clearly distressed, with smart arse comments.

there really are some nasty bastards round these parts at the minute.

Im not nasty brian, honest im not, im really niace :) I apologise for the name calling, it was uncalled for - but i was upset and worried for my DD, but now she has eaten and drunk loads, im happy and don't care if anyone thinks IABU. HAd i not been upset i would have just ignored the stupid comments, but i bit, and im sorry about that.

I too shall apologise .

My initial ask was a genuine one. When you said she'd bitten through her tongue, I thought you meant literally, not that she'd bitten into it.

To be called a twat when I was showing concern was more than a little off and I too rose to it.

So, moving on ..........

BTW, you don't need an ambulance for it to be reportable under RIDDOR, you just have to be taken directly to hospital for treatment. Doesn't matter how you get there

AmIthatbad - yes, that is correct. My daughter didn't go in an ambulance but it was RIDDOR applicable.
Does the fact that it was the minor injuries clinic make a difference? I don't know as we were an A&E and an operation case, so no grey area as to whether it was reportable or not.

I agree about the unpleasantness of mumsnet. And I thought RIDDOR was only for breaks and only if you went straight to hospital, no matter how you got there.

Good to hear your DD is on the mend. I would expect soft play to have a first aider or at least a first aid box and staff willing to help in accidents and emergencies. In fact I assumed (wrongly clearly) that this was the case. There are a lot of argumentative morons on MN at the moment who don't seem to have any concept of sympathy or empathy. Don't let them get to you :)

RIDDOR is for much, much more than breaks, although it is largely for employees. In the case of MoPs, they need to be taken directly to hospital for treatment. It is irrelevant what type of injury they have, as it is the being taken to hospital and being treated that counts. I'm not altogether sure about a minor injuries clinic, as I am not familiar with these and don't know if they are part of a hospital or not.

And everyone is always surprised that first aid is only for employees. But the regs that cover this, like all H & S legislation, is "at work".

As far as schools are concerned, the HSE recognise that although there is no legal duty, there is a duty of care and recommends that pupil numbers are included when assessing the level of first aid cover.

I am surprised that this soft play centre didn't do this, from a moral point of view, if not a legal one.

lilac - you are riht about the RIDDOR, i learnt as much today - because I went to MI first it wasn't considered to be reportable. The irony of that is i could have gone to one of two units, one was at a hospital so then.......... The thing is, the centre didn't know where i took my DD. So had i actually taken her straight to A&E which i would have if it were closer, it would indeed have been reportable.

In my case i needed some clean tissues to help stem the blood flow and maybe the information that i asked for - ie: Is there a MI unit locally? That was all. It would have made no difference whatsoever to the outcome, but maybe had someone come and looked her over, and said why don't you wait here for your DP to come and take you. I wouldnt have had to run to the doctors like a mad woman with a screaming child that looked like an extra from Carrie! Instead, they couldnt tell me where the MI unit was

oh and Kay, i don't believe for one minute you had a mental image of me routing around the ball pool for the remnants of my daugthers tongue!

We have masses of experience in this area, as DS1 seems to be on a mission to have an entry in every accident book in the country. (for a short precis - fractured femur, cuts requiring stitches to the face and scalp. knocked out two teeth, anaphylaxis, concussion. He's only 7!)

I think parents ought to have first aid knowledge, I really do. Even if that knowledge just enables you to stay calm long enough to get help. (DS1 has been ambulanced to hospital 3 times this summer. If I was flapping while on the phone to them, and also trying to keep him calm, it would have been awfully distressing for him,)

DS2 is following in his footsteps, we had a head injury in Tesco earlier this year. Honestly, I am now utterly unmoved by the sight of blood, but what seemed like dozens of staff members flapping, being flummoxed and generally only concerned about getting into trouble was far harder to deal with than a bit of blood from a scalp wound!

OP, would you consider a first aid course? It might help you in situations like this where there is nobody about willing to help.

AmIthatbad - so do soft play centres have no duty of care because the child is supposed to be under the care of their parent?

she was under my care - i had no first aid equipment (clean napkins, towels, something to make a cold compress with) to hand, instead i had to take DP, screaming, to the toilets where i had to use paper towels (nice!!) to stem the bleeding. Was someone intervening and offering me some clean napkins, allowing me to deal with the situation, asking if i had anyone to take me to MI too much to ask? REally???? Or do i have to take a first aid kit to the soft play centre every time i go?