Who was more in the wrong at work today

[Safarigiraffe]

Work in a daycare nursery in Kitchen however today at work me/chef did not provide a no dairy child with a no dairy meal as we didn’t notice him on dietary (our mistake there & we admitted that as well) and at the handover no mention from the room members was made & dietary sheet was signed to say all was good and well (all children have tent cards with their dietary requirements on them). They gave the no dairy child a dairy meal and the child reacted with a rash. Parents of child informed they not too happy but said they will keep a look out for him however if parents complain this could go into an investigation with not only us but room members suspended. So who is more at fault - kitchen, room or both the same.

Who handed the meal to the child?

Of course as you acknowledge you kitchen staff were in the wrong, but surely the procedure is to act like a safety net and the room staff should also have been aware of the child's allergies and caught the error. Sounds like there needs to be something more robust in place.

How do the room staff know what allergens are in the standard meal?

It is said to them at handover & dietary was then signed & afterwards room member gave the child dairy food to eat

Everyone at fault.
Our nursery chef has it clearly listed which children have which allergy. Our register dinner lists clearly state each allergy so there is always a record of both which children are attending that day and an allergy highlighted. Our menus are allergy coded so staff in room can see which allergens are in a meal. This means even if you are covering a room you can see what allergies are in a meal and there is a clear record of which children have allergies in that day. Food is served on colour coded plates so there is no mix up with plates mid meal.
Any system though is only as perfect as the staff being careful and vigilant throughout.

The kitchen staff should know the individual children with allergies. I’m a TA and we always point them out to new staff.

@Bjjgffcb you're dead right. Our Cook would've been beating a path to my door. She's so amazingly on it we have invited anxious (rightly) parents in to see themselves the methods we use.

Its surely every settings basic duty of care.

I have actual nightmares about getting it wrong.

Don't get me started though on the number of packed lunches that contain nuts. I could weep.

You shouldn't be on here asking us.

Your management should be running through what fell down and reissuing a procedure that won't fail in future.

If they aren't you all need to ask them to manage the bloody place properly.

You sound like you don’t give a shit. Just worried about yourself. Your incompetence and laziness could have killed him. Be thankful the reaction isn’t even worse.

Resign from your job and consider doing something with less potential to harm others.

I am literally terrified the nursery will make a mistake with my child and her peanut allergy. Just shows people like you wouldn’t even care if they did.

How much the room is at fault is not an easy question. Did the meal obviously have dairy in it (e.g. pizza) or not (e.g. sausage and mash)? Was the room staffed by the regular members of staff?

So did you or did you not tell the room staff that they had the appropriate meals?

You're still buck passing

Seriously, you sound like an immature teen (with no offence to teens), just unaware of the consequences of your actions. Who gives a shit about apportionment of blame in these circumstances?

Perhaps learn to do your job well instead? And to care about the fact you have somebody else's children under your care and the fact these parents are paying tonnes of money for this care as well as doing their best to communicate their children's safety needs?

It would also help if you could express yourself clearer, you know. Something to consider in your day to day job too, helps with avoiding more major fuck ups. Give your head a wobble.

I work in a nursery and just can't picture how this happened. Our chef as a minimum checks dietary requirements for the day twice. He has a list of all children with allergies and dietary requirements and we give him meal numbers for the day with the dietary requirements.
In thjs case you are all to blame equally. It does depend on how the food is plated. Would you normally place the child's meal on a separate plate? If so it is certainly equal blame as room staff should have noticed as much as you.

There are multiple checkpoints precisely because people make mistakes and it shouldn’t be possible for this many mistakes to overlap. Young children can’t advocate for themselves.

You should expect that the parents will either be asking for a full procedural review or will be pulling their child. If the nursery wants to get ahead of bad publicity, even just within the local community, they will do a full review regardless.

as an allergic person, suspending employees seems counterproductive. You clearly need more training and better procedures. Time off without pay doesn’t help with that.

I am a teacher and have children in my class on specialist diets, they have different colour plates etc for different allergies so we know we are giving the correct food and food is plated up by the kitchen for children with allergies or other specialist diets so teaching staff don’t have to handle their food and can’t serve the wrong thing.

If you served up a non-dairy meal and told the staff it was dairy free/ suitable for the child with an allergy that is obviously your fault. If you only served up a standard meal and the staff in the room didn’t realise it’s harder to say whose fault it was, if the procedure in the nursery is that children with allergies have special cutlery/ placemats the staff should have checked before feeding and not just assumed. Some of that probably comes down to what the food was as well, something obviously dairy like macaroni cheese and the staff should have realised. If the meal didn’t obviously have dairy in though the staff may have assumed that it was dairy free and the child didn’t require a separate meal.

It sounds lucky that the child’s only reaction was a rash and that it wasn’t a more serious allergy/ reaction and hopefully this is a lesson that you need to improve your procedures both in the kitchen and the main room and have a more fail safe way to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

I think I know what OP is trying to say - would staff member know that the child’s meal had dairy - eg was it something like a cheese sandwich, macaroni cheese, or was it something that they may not actually realise had dairy, like sausages.

Many people don’t actually know what dairy is. Which is ridiculous, but I had CHEFS tell me my daughter couldn’t have egg because she’s allergic to dairy. I also had people tell me that butter is fine for someone with a milk allergy. And same with cheese.

Poor kid, he's lucky that he hasn't been wiped off his feet with very painful stomach cramps and ensuing bowel troubles, or worse.
You're ( all the staff ) are very lucky that the parents aren't kicking off big time, as they'd be well within their rights to do so.

Did room staff not know he was no-dairy, or was it decided to give him a dairy meal because there wasn't a non-dairy one available and they just wanted him fed?

Everyone involved in the process is to blame. Including the manager who has overall responsibility. You should have a visual list of all allergy children up in the kitchen and some sort of paperwork that is filled in by room staff which ensures each child eating that day is ticked off with allergies highlighted. Attached to that sheet should be a list of all children with allergies. You could also do a band system where they wear a coloured band or something which is taken off them when meal arrives, but that would depend on age.If they are ige there should be further measures- seated separately or one to one observation during meal to ensure they don't take others food.it should also be prepped separately. My son has a non ige allergy and school have had at least 4 slips ups. If he had an ige allergy I would not trust them to feed him.

This.

You need to focus on how it will not happen again and assure the family it won't.

That poor child is going to have a very uncomfortable stomach, horrible poos, eczema and be itching for days because of this mistake so it won't be "just a rash" as you put it.

You need much better procedures.

"More in the wrong?" Why is this the focus? This could have ended a lot worse than it did and you're worried about making sure the blame is what? shifted?
To answer the question though, YOU are 'more' in the wrong. You fucked up big time and are lucky you didn't seriously injure a child. Or worse.
Yes, everyone has a responsibility here and the sheet should never have been signed. A full review will need to be conducted, at the minimum.
But, I think you are 'most' in the wrong and you seem to be minimising to ensure blame is shared. It should, of course, but your attitude would piss me off far more if I was the parent here.

What the F?! You FORGOT to give the child a no dairy meal?! And you continue to mention the fact a staff member in the room gave the child the plate of food possibly because they believed it was safe? Until someone pointed out that it was in fact unsafe for him, by which time he developed a rash?

Every single person involved needs to give themselves a bloody whopping kick up the arse although as an allergy mum I’m confident the child’s parents will do that for you!

Room staff knew he was no dairy

When my daughter was at nursery (she’s allergic to dairy) we had to sign off each individual meal on the menu.

I had to kick up a fuss that they provided her an appropriate substitution because a lot of their substitutions were thoughtless, for example everyone else got yoghurt and she got a box of raisins, so in some instances I provided the substitution myself.

She had a set seat at the table and it had a different coloured (red) placemat.

Her meal went on a red plate.

There was one incident where she got the wrong yoghurt because the yoghurts weren’t on plates.

There was another where all the food (sandwiches) was put in the middle of the table to share. Dd got her own sandwich on her own plate, but then also took one from the middle, under the encouragement from staff.

I complained both times.