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.

I'm an assistant cook in a JMI school, we have kids with allergies.

My school is nut free, suppliers are nut free.

Egg, dairy, nuts, gluten, soya and legumes.
Some one , some three of them.

Each child has an A4 poster with a photograph and list of allergies above the servery hatch.

We can cook meals and deserts for each child.

I make gluten, dairy and soya free shortbread, pizzas, we have gluten free fish fingers etc.

At another school we had lots of dietary requirements due to religious reasons, so some couldn't eat beef, some pork, some strict vegetarian.

Again posters and pictures .

Menus for each allergy child is organised before each menu change, it's easy if we know.

@InvisibleToEveryone

Sounds wonderful, thank you. You aren’t invisible to the children you feed daily.

Thing is some allergies will be confirmed by pinprick tests and some will be from elimination diet, those from elimination might not be officially documented/confirmed on medical notes for ages, especially in the time of covid.

You need to provide proof because you are literally putting your child's life in the chefs hands. The expense and difficulty of providing a meal that is guaranteed free of contaminants is considerable and therefore they will want to make sure it is a) genuine and b) no allergies have been missed in a highly allergic child.

Tbh I think you are mad not to feed them a packed lunch yourself with such serious multiple allergies all for the sake of a baked potato??

Surely you can understand that the school can't take the risk of cross contamination for such severe allergies? That is why they can't just give him a potato every day. Don't you have to be extremely careful at home as well?
If you don't think it's that bad and it's fine to take that risk, why even mention the allergies?

My dc has this kind of problem - the point is you provide the medical evidence and the menu is adapted for your child.

so my child - can have the spaghetti - but not the meatballs/tomato sauce....so has plain pasta, cook will toss in olive oil and add a side of fish/meat/veg.
can eat the chicken, but not the potato/gravy - cook adds extra veg.
cannot eat pizza - cook will give something else, usually meat/fish for my dc....and extra veg.
Fish and chips - my child cannot have the coating, but has tinned or piece of fish.
cannot have lasagne, will substitue slice of ham with vegetables/salad
the normal curry no, cook makes a free from one for the diary free kids....with a coconut milk base now soya milk cant be used for my dc
Deserts all have dairy/soya apart from fruit - my child has fruit and cook makes jelly some days :)

you sound really angry....you really aren't the only parent doing this daily.
try working with the school. the LEA has a responsibiliy on FSM to provide a balanced diet.....jump through the hoop and you might be surprised that its more than a jacket potato on offer.

@Tinacollada

They need proof because the school and the catering company are in charge of your sons welfare if you're wanting them to feed them.

Free school meals or not.

And your child will need a care plan in place at school.

I don't understand how anyone can write anything so dim. If someone has free school meals and there is no appointment for allergy testing available what do you suggest they do?

IMNOTSHOUTING

a GP letter will suffice, as has been said a lot!

@justanotherkid

Don't be silly. My GP wouldn't give a letter for a medical condition they had no knowledge of (and if they would it wouldn't be worth much would it?) and in any case they charge. It's just plain daft.

Hi OP I work in this area in a school. If you go to
loveschoolmeals.co.uk/medical-diets/
And look under policies and procedures there is a medical evidence form you can take to your GP or other medical professional. Hand this in with your medical diet request form. Chartwells will then produce a specialised individual menu for your child which provides a balanced diet whilst avoiding their allergens

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

Surely to God the GP will have this recorded in the childs medical record....I assume a medical professional and not the childs mother has diagnosed the anaphylaxis and less severe allergy!!!!!

for the sake of keeping the child safe just have the GP confirm the childs allergy, it is really not as difficult as OP is making out.

look at the post under yours which links the policies and procedures.

Lots and lots of us have been there and wear the T-Shirt.

IMNOTSHOUTING

Dim! Why thank you.

[quote justanotherkid]@IMNOTSHOUTING
OP has said
Background - my child is anaphylactic to dairy, egg, banana and nuts.
A less severe allergy to wheat, soya, shell fish

Surely to God the GP will have this recorded in the childs medical record....I assume a medical professional and not the childs mother has diagnosed the anaphylaxis and less severe allergy!!!!!

for the sake of keeping the child safe just have the GP confirm the childs allergy, it is really not as difficult as OP is making out.

look at the post under yours which links the policies and procedures.

Lots and lots of us have been there and wear the T-Shirt.[/quote]
She’s already said there’s an anaphylaxis plan in place for those allergies - the issue is the less severe ones.

If they’re non-IgE reactions then you can’t run tests for them - they don’t show up on blood tests or skin prick tests. It’s not uncommon to have bp evidence of this - OP says she has it in old letters but nothing recent, which there usually wouldn’t be. Seems crazy to me to get a GP to fill in a form saying X reacts to Y and Z when they would only know this because the parents have told them. I’ve shown photos of reactions to doctors but that’s the best knowledge they have.

And as OP rightly points out, there may well be kids experiencing poverty who can’t access FSMs because of this, at least while it’s sorted out. They’re more likely to say the child has no allergies and tell their child to avoid what they can’t have, and as we know that’s not always straightforward.

@justanotherkid Read the OP. She has proved the severe allergies she cannot prove the less severe ones because the waiting list is too long. She can go and tell the GP her child is allergic and then pay for the GP to provide a letter (if he is willing to do so on her word) but that somewhat defeats the purpose of free school meals doesn't it? It's also clearly pointless since it's still only her word.

Most people with mild allergies don't need medical intervention. It's a complete waste of resources to get it, especially at the moment. It shouldn't require proof it should just require logging with whoever provides the meals.

@IMNOTSHOUTING - seems apparent to me that the OP is overreacting to a simple request for more detail. I sincerely doubt she has been told they don’t believe her and she must provide “proof.” She just doesn’t want any hassle, because she wrongly thinks it will be safe for her child with severe allergies to be given baked potatoes prepared alongside other foods to which he may have an anaphylactic reaction, and wrongly thinks Chartwells will be fulfilling its obligations to feed her child a potato and nothing else. She also wrongly thinks her child will only be entitled to free school meals for 6 weeks. She’s so wrong in so much, I don’t think she’s made much effort to be right.

My child doesn't have school dinner because of this.
The nhs is overburdened enough without needing the GP to provide proof so that a child can eat without dying.

It's ridiculous

Even with the proof the food is substandard with no choice.

I'd take it up with the school, the governors, the LEA.

@feministbias - all of whom would rather have adequate details on allergies than be accused of gross negligence manslaughter by giving a child with a known history of anaphylaxis, a contaminated baked potato. All of whom would also rather not be accused of inadequate safeguarding and making no effort to provide balanced meals to a child on free school meals.
Besides all that, though, I agree the meals provided are often unappetising, even if they do meet nutritional requirements if a child can stomach them.

And @feministbias, it is not only the NHS that is overburdened. Parents that waste time on scattergun complaining also overburden Local Authorities, schools and governing bodies.

In the grand scheme of things I don’t think printing out the allergy list from someone’s medical records to ensure a child can be provided with a safe meal is going to waste that much time.

In the OPs case she has already said she has had (and lost) letters from the consultant with the allergies listed so can just ask the gp for a copy of them

[quote SteppedOnBloodyLego]@dramalamma He's clearly allergic to gluten (vomits when he eats it - always has) but they want proof. the only way they'll get proof is if I can force him to eat gluten every day (which he will vomit up each time) for 6 weeks and then be tested - which will probably still come up negative because he won't have ingested enough gluten to show up because he's vomits it up every time! It's not worth it

Complete nonsense. You are clearly confusing gluten intolerance (aka celiac disease) and wheat allergy. Look it up.[/quote]
No you are very wrong
Gluten intolerance is not the same as celiac.

To diagnose celiac you have to undergo a biopsy to look for damages villi in the intestine. For that damage to be present you have to include gluten In Your diet I.e you have to poison yourself for a period of time before the biopsy.
It's horrendous to go through and if you haven't invested enough gluten then they may not find a damaged villi.

This is absurd.

The OP is taking out her personal frustration and experiences... which she is of course entitled to have, regardless of whether we all agree with them - personally I don't.

... but then it's being suggested that parents will opt to give their child an unsuitable school meal while they are waiting to have this all sorted with school and the catering company.

That parent would be a total arsehole, FSM or not.

Also, to add..
if you were tasked with catering for a child with severe enough allergies that they required him to have an EpiPen, wouldn't you want to have; in writing; the exact details of ALL his allergies?

I know I'd want to be pretty sure our nutrition team had done their job properly, if I was the one tasked with feeding him.