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.

If just be thanking my lucky stars that the child is still alive.

Time to review procedures so that this can’t happen.

Yes but did they know that specific meal had dairy in it?

Yes they knew

You're being very unclear about the timeline here, possibly deliberately. Had you already realised when you handed the food over that you had forgotten the non-dairy meal? If so, did you not tell the nursery staff? Once you realised why did you not prepare something else, it surely should have been possible to find something for the child to eat? Unless it was something very obvious like macaroni cheese why was the onus on the nursery staff to realise that the main meal which you handed over had dairy in today and was not suitable? Sounds like you are scrabbling to save your own skin here.

How did they know?

I'm a School Catering Manager, legally the Chef is held responsible here as I would be should this happen in my School Kitchen. There should be a robust system in place for the management of allergies, this is an extremely serious error and, had the allergy been more serious, could have cost the child their life.

Do you not receive a register which highlights the children staying for lunch? And an allergy board in the kitchen showing a photo of each allergy child and listing their allergy? Or a minutes briefing where the Chef goes through the list of children with allergies who are having lunch and what their alternative meal is? Or a different coloured plate for them so that all staff are aware that they have allergies? Maybe it's time to start!

My own daughter has a milk allergy, we have to wait a full 6 months without any allergic reactions before we can start gradually introducing milk into her diet (the milk ladder). This poor child will now have a prolonged wait before they can start on the milk ladder.

The nuts in packed lunches thing makes me so annoyed. There’s a child in DS class that is deathly allergic and we still get regular notices that a packed lunch (yet again) has been found with nuts in. They reiterate the point that a child could die and yet people still ignore their requests.

Fucking hell, are you this obtuse at work?

Did they know the meal had dairy in it? Thats a yes/no question.

How does this work though. At handover on the list would it say x is here, and he needs a non-dairy meal, everyone agrees and signs, you cook the food and it's bought out?

Was the child's name not on the list at all so it looked as if all standard meals to be sent out?

Seriously. You could have killed someone's child. It's your job to notive. Thank fuck he just had a rash. You could be looking at a manslaughter charge. Take your job seriously!

Ok kitchen made food missed a df child on sheet, care staff signed for food and gave the df child same meal as everyone else feed from food should be provided on different coloured plates bowls ect so less chance of errors, sound like everyone needs more training, and a better improved system put in place to prevent this happening again, end of the day this is down from the start the sheets the cooks and who hands them the food they whole system is naff and needs sorting, this could have caused the death of a child 😳

Legally the kitchens fault. And you trying to ex use it is absolutely awful. Get out of the kitchen if you are going to be so cavalier about children's life's. Had that been a nut allergy the child may have died. Take responsibility. I highly doubt the child will return to your setting.

This is horrible. If it was a fatal allergy the child could have died. You are all charged with taking care of their well-being, not giving them rashes and potentially killing them.

If I heard about this happening at my kids' preschool I would pull them out so fast you'd get whiplash. And my kids don't even have any food allergies but I wouldn't trust your policies and procedures to keep them safe.

YABU and not only that but you were all negligent to boot.

When food was handed over I didn’t realise the food had been forgotten as there was no mention of it from their side & by the time the room staff realised the child had already eaten the dairy food and developed a rash on his face mainly around his mouth. Also I at handover said to them this is a dairy food before they had signed it on dietary sheet

Probably the childcare staff in that they should have rang the child’s parents as soon as it was noticed he had eaten the food.

The other staff may have assumed the meal as a whole was dairy free - many meals are naturally suitable for dairy allergy sufferers. My daughter didn’t always need an allergy meal.

Sounds like you all fucked up. Stop trying to apportion blame.
There might be an inherent weakness in your procedures. It needs full review and root cause analysis and action planning to ensure this does not happen again. That child will be suffering due to mistakes made.
As the mother of a child in nursery with an allergy I would be incandescent at the failing which could have risked my child’s life in what is supposed to be a professionally managed place of safety.

Children can die from dairy allergies too. It’s not just a case that one kind of allergy is worse / you can react the exact same to dairy as you can nuts. And also allergies can become more severe suddenly - so a mild reaction could turn severe and you don’t know til it happens.

Well if room staff knew he was no dairy then yes they knew main meal had dairy in it

I agree this is a situation where you've all got to look at policies and procedures and say, how was this able to happen?

The incident tells you that your policies aren't working. Either the system for ordering/checking etc doesn't work well enough, or, perhaps the policies as written are too complex in practice so everyone takes shortcuts. Whatever is put in place as a result of this incident needs to 1) work robustly and 2) be reasonably straightforward to comply with on a day to day basis, so that everyone will stick with it properly.

I have a child with a dairy allergy and their nursery has made similar mistakes.

Honestly if this happens the process needs to re-examined. It seems there were a couple of points of failure both equally responsible.

Also reactions dairy allergies tend to be non immediate so even if it was only a rash this could still develop. Last time my son was wheezy and needed to be prescribed an inhaler the next day.

If the child was not down as non dairy, how could you be expected to know?

Did you tell them what the allergens were?
Fuck it - what was the meal? How obvious were the allergens? Who has a copy of the allergen matrix? Why did you not supply an appropriate meal?

All of you. It’s a collective responsibility. I worked in nurseries for 8 years and it was a step by step process from the kitchen to service in the rooms, everyone had a responsibility to make sure only correct food was given and to avoid cross contamination. you check, check and check again.

Imagine if it required an epi pen?

Ive seen this happen twice, both times “thankfully” with non possible fatal reactions. At one nursery it was a form smack on the wrist and warning not to do it again, other nursery it went straight to disciplinary. Not fired I should add, but the colleagues were devastated and although gross misconduct, their remorse I think saved them (as deputy I was the nite taker). They had to do further training courses, food hygiene had to come out and the warning sat on the colleagues records for the max time allowed.

You cooked a fucking dairy meal but didn't bother checking the room sheets. Stop blaming the room staff, you gave them the meal!