School catering company asking for proof of my kids allergies before they are allowed school dinners.

[CovidStoleTheRainbow]

Background - my child is anaphylactic to dairy, egg, banana and nuts.
A less severe allergy to wheat, soya, shell fish.

He's entitled to free school meals for a couple of months and we figured he could have jacket potato.

School said not til we filled in a form.
The Chartwells form said not til we have given proof of allergies.
I thought they were joking so I filled in the form but didn't send 'proof'.
School asked for proof, I asked school to photo copy my child's anaphylaxis care plan and send them that.

Got a letter today from Chartwells, saying thanks for the proof of the foods he's severely allergic to, but now prove he's allergic to soya, wheat and shell fish.

I'm a bit 'what the fuck?!' for two reasons.

First of all - proof?! Why? Just allow his limited diet and let him eat a fricking hot spud.

Second of all, the waiting list for the allergy clinic in my area is 2 years before coronavirus issues and it's a fight to get on the list at all so there's kids out there with little to no proof they have allergies or intolerances to food, and many of them will be from families in poverty well in need of free school meals.

Yes I get there will be people who randomly not wanting their kid to eat gluten but with allergies on the rise in the way that they are, they will be the absolute lowest common denominator.

it’s very rare to get to be school age without a food allergy being noticed and confirmed

Not necessarily. Some allergies develop later. I used to eat things containing sesame without a care in the world, nowadays it does terrible things to me.

@JacobReesMogadishu

Dd has quite a few allergies. The only ones diagnosed by the nhs are coeliac and lactose. We did pay for a private allergy test which stated quite a few others.

When I asked her gastro consultant about this he did give the caveat that such tests aren’t always reliable but said the best diagnosis of food allergies and intolerance isn’t a medical test but that if something affects you, stop eating it. If you’re ok with something then carry on eating it.

Dd is certainly a lot better since she stopped eating stuff on her list. But if someone just followed that consultant advice they might struggle proving something.

Coeliac disease is not an allergy. It is an auto immune disease.

@Cygne
I worked out that I was allergic to sesame because I began having increasingly serious reactions which only happened when I had eaten anything with sesame in it. I didn't need to go to the doctor for it, because the treatment is perfectly obvious: avoid food with sesame. I carry anti-histamine tablets in case I eat it by accident, and at the moment if that doesn't work I will start vomiting and get rid of the allergen that way.

I think seeing a doctor/allergist would be wise - sounds like you may need to carry epipens. Just relying on antihistamines and vomiting isn't safe.

This company did the same to me. We don’t make this shit up for fun!

Why not send him to school with food and ask them to heat it. Why can't you make him something for a couple of months? He seems to have a very restricted diet.

My ds is allergic to banana. Had allergy testing, they did skin prick ones, nothing came up. But they said that given the severity of the reaction (severe vomiting and diarrhoea, usually with blood) that they would absolutely consider that an allergy and he is to avoid it.
The ONE occasion there was an accidental contamination, I knew immediately and within half hour his symptoms were present.

School is aware, but have never requested proof, maybe it’s because it’s an easy one to avoid? He gets fsm and the catering has never been an issue for us although every time I fill out a form for his meals I call and have them clarify there is nothing with hidden banana in it (the desert choices I mean).
Disappointing that others have to jump through hoops because some people are just so outrageous as to lie about allergies in their children.

My DD is a coeliac which, fortunately, is a clear, diagnosable, condition with an established treatment - follow a 100% gluten free diet forever. Prior to this diagnosis we had to trial elimination diets - dairy, lactose and gluten separately. The school were sympathetic but would not provide her with suitable lunches. It was annoying but I can see their point. Its expensive and time consuming for kitchen staff to cater properly for medically diagnosed food intolerances and allergies. I want them to take it seriously and they absolutely do. My DD has had a fantastic service from the school catering team and I am glad their approach is structured and clear. I understand why they didn't want to accept responsibility for the various elimination diets we had to trial.

Why not send him to school with food and ask them to heat it.

Then you run the risk of cross-contamination in the kitchen.

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy

Just to note; the unfortunate incidences occurred over 30 years ago, before these allergy protocols were put into place & epipens/ject pens were more commonplace. Even the kitchen staff were trained in basic children’s first aid as their helplessness was pinpointed as a factor in trauma management.

The cases of

Karanbir Cheema
Mohammad Ismaeel Ashraf
Nasar Ahmed,

were all recent

Pull out their medical needs policy or supporting children in school with medical needs. Whatever the name.

@SushiGo we have this exact issue! I was mildy lactose intolerant as a child and now sadly I can't have dairy at all, I'm instantly really poorly if I have anything with dairy in. When my 6yo started with symptoms of intolerance I took him to the doctor and they advised just to watch how much he has, only have it at home so I can make sure it's monitored, as it could be something else (it's not but obviously cutting it down is the first step in properly working it out). School refused to accept it as an intolerance and I could either provide medical evidence of an allergy and they would cut it out completely OR they would just give him the normal options. So now I have to be even more strict as I don't always get the full story of what he chose for lunch or what ingredients were in the pudding. They didn't seem to understand at all...

allergy child here too.
in our area you have to give school the 'yellow form' that the consultant or dietian supplies to confirm the allergies.
my dc has multiple allergies so the school meals have to be agreed and signed off by the lea dietician - to ensure the meals are balanced across the week, a jacket potatoe every day would not be okay and the dietician would have to plan the meals with the school to make sure all food groups were being met.
its a good system - well it was before covid!!!

OP give the school the proof they need, the request is there for a reason even if you don't agree.
a GP letter should suffice if yellow forms dont exist where you are

My child is allergic to some foods and we just sent in a care plan to the school, they asked me to complete a form, so they could send it to the relevent departments etc. My child carries an epipen. I didn't need to send proof of his allergy test and results.

@Hazelnutlatteplease

they've returned the forms blank with a note saying 'No nuts'.

I'm damn glad your caterers refused to serve the kid. What if you were wrong, and it actually is a nut allergy. You example highlights why medical confirmation is essential

I'm glad they did, too.

But the caterers are already nut free, due to the numbers of children who do have allergies. And nobody else known to be nut allergic had a reaction which, if it were a case of cross contamination, would have been a huge risk.

The parents refused to fill in the forms on multiple occasions. They didn't bother mentioning at least 50% of the items the kid had a severe allergy to.

They did not provide any medication.

Do you really think they would have gone to the bother of seeing a doctor to get proof of allergens when they couldn't even be bothered to write a couple of words? (no, not illiterate, either). They would have just sent the kid in to have school meals with nothing to say 'no nuts, no prawns, no crabsticks, no tuna'. Even giving the information themselves would have enabled the caterers to say 'No, you can't have that because it's got...', but refusing to share the information meant there was no way of doing that, other than to refuse to feed the kid at all.

As it was, that child would be entirely dependent upon the speed of an ambulance and the effectiveness of CPR throughout their education. Unlike the other kids who at least would have at least an improved chance of not dying - due to having medication on site and staff knowing their allergens/ensuring they were not put into a situation of contact with them.

Can you imagine the logic behind having such a severe reaction, but not even providing a bottle of Piriton, never mind an inhaler or EpiPen? Or telling anybody in advance that they had allergies and what to?

Demanding proof adds yet another obstacle in the path when you have parents like that. They'd have stuck with not saying anything. So taking the information from parents is better than insisting upon a doctor's letter to prove how worthy they are of being catered for.

@MummytoCSJH being fair to Chartwells they will work with this sort of issue once they have their medical evidence. It's all worked out by the dietician but we have been involved in a milk trial short term to see if a child can have dairy and we have several children who can have small amounts of a food or have a food when cooked but not raw etc.
I do understand the problems with getting medical evidence especially if you are on a low income and would have to pay but once you have the evidence they are quite helpful.

@CovidStoleTheRainbow

Im posting this again and highlighting it because people are missing it

Second of all, the waiting list for the allergy clinic in my area is 2 years before coronavirus issues and it's a fight to get on the list at all so there's kids out there with little to no proof they have allergies or intolerances to food, and many of them will be from families in poverty well in need of free school meals.

I can get a letter from my consultant to prove his allergies. I can give him the same packed lunch.

But what about those who haven't had a diagnoses...????

People aren't missing it. It's just that whatabouttery is annoying.

[quote LizzieAnt]@Cygne
I worked out that I was allergic to sesame because I began having increasingly serious reactions which only happened when I had eaten anything with sesame in it. I didn't need to go to the doctor for it, because the treatment is perfectly obvious: avoid food with sesame. I carry anti-histamine tablets in case I eat it by accident, and at the moment if that doesn't work I will start vomiting and get rid of the allergen that way.

I think seeing a doctor/allergist would be wise - sounds like you may need to carry epipens. Just relying on antihistamines and vomiting isn't safe.[/quote]
I thought the same. This sounds like exactly the sort of allergy which needs further testing

Not sure I see the issue here - we’ve always just provided a copy of the most recent letter from his consultant to the GP. As others have said, some parents will push for specific diets without there being a medical need, just a preference.

MitziK Never knew that about Satay! Had always assumed it was the sauce rather than the method. Everyday is a school day!

I used to work for Chartwells (which is part of the huge catering company Compass) and did the food safety training. Most meals were cooked off site in a regional industrial kitchen and reheated on site at the school.

They will need proof of the allergies, and if the letters that you have are over a year old they should be fine. (My child's GP letter was for a dairy intolerance, which was taken as seriously by them as an allergy.)

Presuming your school orders online, you can order Jacket Potato every day, and different toppings should be available. It is balanced, as there is salad, fruit, pudding etc available too.

HOWEVER, you can't order standard menu food (ie Jacket Potato) if you have declared an allergy. There will be a plan in place, menu agreed with you in advance, and your child will have a specially sealed meal, usually cooked in an off-site regional kitchen (like a ready meal/ airline style tray with all components), reheated separately to prevent cross contamination of allergens.

Unfortunately, the risk is too high to Chartwells to allow your child to have a Jacket Potato potentially contaminated with a shred of cheese from the child served previously, for example. This is presumably too high a risk for you too.

It can be difficult proving allergies. For example, my dd had numerous IGR allergies when she was born and has been sent for allergy tests. Her dairy and soy allergies were confirmed and written on her care plan.

Now, she also reacted to egg on the allergy test but because she has never eaten egg (and the allergy clinic do not believe it is safe to try her with it at present), they can't legally list this on her record or care plan. She would have to eat it and have suffered a clunically observable reaction before it can be officially recorsed as an allergy. Also, the clinic only test for the 14 main allergens and one of the fruits she has had a reaction to isn't included in this list. Therefore, she has never clunivally been diagnosed woth an allergy to this fruit but if she was to eat it she would come out in hives, her mouth would swell and she would require antihistamine.

Add to this the fact that her allergy care plan is two years out of date (partly because NHS allergy appointments are hard to come by and partly because when we have managed to secure appointments she's been sent home as she has been deemed to be snotty / wheezy / unable to take the test).

So you can see, it can be VERY difficult to provide evidence of allergies.

And for those of you commenting that sometimes parents 'claim' their child has a dairy allergy but then the child eats certain dairy containing foods, it is perfectly posiible to be allergic to a food in some forms but not others - google the dairy ladder or the egg ladder!

Honestly, there is so much ignorance and judgement around allergies, it's scary.

Sorry about the typo's, I'm having issues with my stupid keyboard.

Can you get a letter from someone at the GPs? It doesn't need to be a Dr's appointment a nurse or practice manager could write a letter based on your dc notes.

I can see where they are coming from because they probably don't want your child to have a baked potato every day and may have other meals suitable but not on the standard menu. Eg As well as the baked potato they may have a meal based on new potatoes that is not on the usual menu and may be suitable.

I get meals on wheels, they are the same price every day, but if I look at the manufacturer's website the meals are priced differently, it may be that suitable dishes are more expensive.

@Chwaraeteg

It can be difficult proving allergies. For example, my dd had numerous IGR allergies when she was born and has been sent for allergy tests. Her dairy and soy allergies were confirmed and written on her care plan.

Now, she also reacted to egg on the allergy test but because she has never eaten egg (and the allergy clinic do not believe it is safe to try her with it at present), they can't legally list this on her record or care plan. She would have to eat it and have suffered a clunically observable reaction before it can be officially recorsed as an allergy. Also, the clinic only test for the 14 main allergens and one of the fruits she has had a reaction to isn't included in this list. Therefore, she has never clunivally been diagnosed woth an allergy to this fruit but if she was to eat it she would come out in hives, her mouth would swell and she would require antihistamine.

Add to this the fact that her allergy care plan is two years out of date (partly because NHS allergy appointments are hard to come by and partly because when we have managed to secure appointments she's been sent home as she has been deemed to be snotty / wheezy / unable to take the test).

So you can see, it can be VERY difficult to provide evidence of allergies.

And for those of you commenting that sometimes parents 'claim' their child has a dairy allergy but then the child eats certain dairy containing foods, it is perfectly posiible to be allergic to a food in some forms but not others - google the dairy ladder or the egg ladder!

Honestly, there is so much ignorance and judgement around allergies, it's scary.

My sister has multiple allergies and things like cashew are listed on her list of allergies based simply on the result of the allergy testing because like your daughter with eggs they have said the risk is too great for her to even attempt eating them.

Wow OP.

I definitely do know what I'm talking about, being the parent of a child with multiple dietary allergies.

I don't really give a toss about how many kids are in your child's school.

You're very angry.