To think this was terrible service

[Armadilloboss]

Sorry in advance for the long post

My DS took DN’s (4 and 5) to get their back to school stationary yesterday. DN (4) is starting reception and was super excited for this as she feels grown up like her big sister.
Upon entering paperchase, a nasty little girl stuck her foot out and tripped my niece over. Poor thing didn’t see it coming and went straight into the glass display table, splitting her mouth open.
The girls mother ran over and grabbed the girl shouted ‘what have you done now?’ And swiftly left the store, making me think this girl has form for this sort of thing.
DN was bleeding from her mouth. It was all over her, the floor and my sister, and as you can imaging she was screaming in both pain and shock. Sister shouted the girl at the till for help and the girl responded ‘I’m busy serving’. She then shouted over for a wipe or something to stop the bleeding. The girl huffed, pulled a toilet roll from behind the till and ripped some off for her. Luckily enough my sisters friend walked past and seen sister (they were at the first display as you walk in, this happened within seconds of them entering the store) she went in to help and again approached the girl at the till and said ‘are you not going to help the little girl over there?’ Again she was told they were too busy. SF asked if they had a first aider of first aid kit on site and was met with ‘no, we dont’
After DN had calmed a bit my sister went over and said ‘do you need to put this in an accident report (we have both worked in retail for 15 years so know the procedure for this type of thing)’ again the girl was unphased and replied ‘no we don’t have one of them’ my sister again queried this and said ‘a 4 year old has just smashed her face against your glass display, there is blood all over your floor, and you don’t need to document this?’ The girl responded ‘yeah but was she running around mad?’ At which point my sister just walked out the store.
She immediately emailed paperchase to complain and has yet to receive a response (this was 10am yesterday morning).
AIBU to think this is appalling and the safety of people in their store should come before serving a customer?

Thanks for all your responses everyone. I just want to again reititerate, as things seem to have been infused through the many posts, I have in not way blamed paperchase for the incident, nor have I mentioned legal action at all. My complaint was in regards to how the incident was handled in store and the rudeness to the team member. And the fact that she basically assumed that the accident had occurred due to the behaviour of the child, which was not the case

@Tonnerre ok then, say someone claims there has been an accident and there is no entry in the accident book?

If the shop can show that it trains staff to use the accident book, that's it's written down in standard procedures, and that there is a realistic history of reporting, then the person making the claim is probably on a hiding to nothing if there are no witnesses. However, if the reality is that their staff have no clue about noting accidents and couldn't find the accident book if they tried, the shop is in difficulties.

Either the OP sister comes back to paperchase because she’s as stupid as some posters here and wants to sue them, and they have nothing in the accident book. Sooo..... it didn’t happen? Or the shop assistant didn’t record it? Who knows. What difference does it make?

I can't see any grounds to sue here, and OP has made it perfectly clear that she has no intention of doing so. Nevertheless, if she did come back with a claim and there was nothing in the accident book, the shop would be in difficulty because OP could present perfectly good evidence that an accident had happened in the shape of photos of her child's face and/or medical records. A customer thinking of making a claim in these circumstances may also take photographs in the shop of the blood in the relevant area. The insurance company is going to be distinctly unimpressed if it has no record whatsoever to counteract what the claimant says.

Whilst there isn't a statutory requirement to record customers' accidents, it may nevertheless be a legal requirement under the contract with the insurance company. As has been pointed out, a lot of businesses regard it as good practice anyway - if, for example, there are a number of reports of tripping accidents in a particular area, the business owners can take steps to check for trip hazards. It therefore benefits all customers potentially.

There is no legal requirement to put a child’s or customer accident in an accident book. In fact, to so might breach GDPR requirements

Oh dear, why do people think that GDPR prohibits people from keeping any sort of information whatsoever? If it goes into the accident book with the customer's name, that can only be on the basis that the customer has consented and given their details, so it can't be a GDPR breach.

A statutory First aid kit would be completely pointless as they wouldn’t contain anything of any use at all.

There is no such thing as a statutory First Aid kit. HSE advice is to put them together based on a First Aid needs assessment.

All the people saying the customers in the queue wouldn't mind. A customer complained to head office in a previous job because they had to wait as there was only one person on checkouts. I was serving and my supervisor was dealing with a customer who had tripped and hit their head. We were waiting on an ambulance because that customer was unconscious and bleeding. At one point, someone stepped over the customer to reach something on a shelf.

Also, calling another member of staff - yesterday I lone worked from 9am - 11am so...no other members of staff there.

I would expect Paperchase to record the incident in the accident book for liability insurance purposes. That's not to admit liability btw, but to note aware of accident that happened on premises. Although the accident was caused by other girl tripping DN (proximate cause) hence no direct negligence, it doesn't stop DN mother (and others as we've seen) to try to claim. Of course the claim would be thrown out but with poor recording, insurers may be found wanting.

Tonerre, perhaps I should have said a British Standard BS 8599-1 compliant first aid kit rather than a statutory one. You’re right, it might change with a risk assessment but probably not for a shop.

GDPR is applicable even if consent has been given. There is the issue of access to and storage of the information. They can consent to entry in a random book but Article 5 (e) of the GDPR requirement is for data to be kept for the minimum period and only for as long as essential for the intended purpose. What is the purpose of recording CPI in a random accident book? The purpose of keeping personal data must be made clear at the outset. How long might that be for a child without serious injury?
A key principle of the GDPR is that you process personal data securely by means of ‘appropriate technical and organisational measures’ – this is the ‘security principle’. A first aid book in a shop is not usually terribly secure.

Sounds like there was one person seving at the till and she wasn't sure how to deal with the situation. She would have had to leave the queue waiting and spend a lot of time getting the details of the incident etc.
We don't know the staffing situation in there. A lot of variables.

Unconnected to the incident but do 4 and 5 year olds have to supply their own stationery for school now?

i hope Paperchase respond with a get well card and some goodies in the post

@Sparklingbrook Iv always supplies my own stationary at school at every age? Always got a new backpack and pens/pencils/rubbers/sharpeners and a nice new pencil case. Iv never known a school to provide anything other than paper/exercise books, and those ‘my first pen’ when you first learn to use a pen to write cursive, even then my mum donated 1.50 to the school for it.

All stationery was supplied at school until Year 5 here (Worcestershire). The First School actually had to ban pencil cases filled with stuff from home because it caused so much distraction.

Also school book bags with the school logo on. Like this

I’m a teacher and haven’t ever worked in a school where children didn’t bring in their own pencil cases, not always from reception but certainly by the end of KS1z Of course pens and pencils etc are available in the classrooms for those that need them but I think it’s fairly typical for children to have pencil cases with pencil, ruler, rubber etc.

My two went to a small village school from YR-Y4 (55 pupils when DS1 started). Don't know whether that's relevant, but there was quite the drama when pencil cases and bringing in their own stationery got banned, because one child started it then all the children wanted to.

It wasn't until middle school that we had to supply stationery.