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.

This!! Do the room staff have all your recipes? I doubt it. It's on the kitchen

Ok, everyone is to blame, but that isn't what matters.

Your management establishing a clear time line, working out where the initial error could have been stopped and ensuring it doesn't happen again is important.

They need to know how you missed the meal, how it was possible to send out 30 dairy meals and not 29 + 1 dairy free. They need to know the handover sheet is useless.

My children were dairy free (CMPA) in nursery and I got the call to say staff had made an error. He had a rash, bloody stools and was very sore for days after. I didn't blame the staff, I blamed the policies and procedures that didn't stop it happening.

That's what I wanted in the investigation, to know how they were going to find the whole is the process and stop them. How they were going to learn and improve from the situation.

In incidents like this it is usually multiple things that go wrong, as if it was only you missing the meal it would have been caught. It should still have been logged as a near miss and looked into.

Exactly this. Not acceptable and I would be removing my child from this setting.

It doesn't matter who is to blame, you all are because your procedure didn't work.

Ours went like this...

Register taken, numbers given to kitchen. It would say something like..

Nokids room

5 regular meals
2 vegetarian meals
1 no pork
1 no dairy
Etc

When the meals were delivered to the room the same sheet would have been brought back and each item checked off before being given to the children.

What was your procedure and why didn't it work?

Was there a meeting afterwards to decide on how to immediately change the processes?

Exactly.

Not only that, sometimes things can change. My daughter ate a particular brand of breadsticks for ages and suddenly they changed the recipe and they were no longer dairy free.
With custard (which one would assume contains dairy) the large tub of Birds custard is dairy free; but the individual sachets are not.

In neither of these circumstances would the nursery staff outwith the kitchen be at fault.

Thinking about the kitchen of my old nursery, all children with allergies / intolerances (considered the same) were on the wall. Literally spread across the wall, a piece of paper for each child, their picture, what the allergy was and days attended. There was a whiteboard in their too, and a clipboard and kitchens first job was to visit each room and record numbers and all allergens present that day.

Allergy childrens food was given in a different coloured bowl, regardless of whether the food that day was different for them or not. It was served up for them in the kitchen, wrapped in foil and labelled “Freddie, Baby Room, no dairy” for example. Likewise, children with preferences also had another coloured bowl (eg vegetarian by choice) and was again wrapped and labelled. The rest was sent down in the big serving dishes to dish up in rooms. Staff would immediately see separate dishes. A staff member had to be basically next to a child with allergies (they generally were put together for this reason).

The allergy lists were also very very present in the rooms. No photos for confidentiality but a list in large letters pinned up where staff could see it clear as day dishing up.

Ultimately in a world where we are human, somewhere there will always be a slip but you have to take responsibility for your part in this. You didn’t check, nor did they.

From what I can gather multiple members of staff are not following process here (or there aren’t any/robust enough) and this needs thorough investigation. Please tell us this is already in motion even before there is a complaint.

Rather than anyone arse covering, this should be an opportunity to get food allergy processes 100% nailed down before a child is more seriously hurt next time.

The facts are you are looking to see who is more to blame than you are? When you should be feeling absolutely bloody terrible you’ve caused a child a massive amount of discomfort and pain and the parents worry. A child could have died, allergies are really not taken seriously enough. As a kitchen you need to robustly review your procedures to make sure you know who is in and what meals you need to make, that might mean checking and triple checking to avoid what happened today. The room staff will need to do their part too, as a team you need to be seen to be acting swiftly to identify how this happened and how you will stop a repeat!!

never mind worrying about who is more to bloodywell blame

All of you equally. You should have known to give him a non-dairy meal and the room staff should have asked which meal was for non-dairy child. Going forward you all need to look at your procedures and make sure you are clear on who needs special meals and maybe use a different coloured plate for them or something.

As a nursery chef myself. I do not understand how not one of you was following procedure .
If you had followed the dietary sheet it would not have happened.
If at handover you both read a signed the sheet it would not of happened.
If staff members in the room had read and followed the dietary sheet it would not of happened.

The kitchen staff are way more to blame/in the wrong.

It is the job of the kitchen to check and prepare meals in line with dietary requirements.
If this was a nut allergy then it could have been serious.

However, the room staff should have made the parents aware and not signed that he’d had a diary free meal.

Does it really matter who is most to blame? That's unforgivable.

I'd be livid if I was that child's parents. This isn't going to just 'go away', nor should it.

This can't ever happen again. You could all have had the death of a child on your conscience.

That nursery should be shut down. This was a really really serious incident. I don’t give a shit who was in the kitchen and who was handing out the food, it should have been impossible that this happen.

You do know a child with a dairy allergy died at school when a bully hid cheese in his food?

If this child had died you’d all potentially be liable for negligent manslaughter. Lickily it seems that in this particular case the allergy was mild.

If you don’t realise how serious this was, please consider a job change.

The ‘who is to blame more’ question is indicative of a cultural issue where no one takes accountability. If everyone was doing that for their bit, processes would be in place and this wouldn’t have happened.

How does the handover sheet work and what is it’s purpose? Surely the whole point is for you to check the prepared meals against the required dietary requirements (eg 5 regular, 1 non dairy for this room) before handing them over, and for the receiving staff to double check and confirm that’s what they’ve received? The entire procedure is pointless if you just go “here are 6 meals” and neither of you is referring to some sort of list as to what should have been received. And also, if the procedure is what I have outlined, then kitchen staff have failed twice- once in not preparing the required meal and again in not checking you’ve met the requirements whilst doing handover.

Your responses are truly awful. I wouldn't want DS anywhere near your nursery, your attitude as staff and your workplace are every parents' worst nightmare. I wish we knew which nursery this is to report you all for the sake of these kids and their parents. Lot like you sadly only learn at others' expense, I hope it won't be too late.

Collective responsibility and accountability

Yes to a pp, any allergy can be fatal and it can change any time not just nuts. You are correct. My child needs gf as celiac and eating traces messes his stomach and ability to get nutrients out of food up for weeks.

Your attitude is appalling, playing a blame game.
do you know how uncomfortable a child with a dairy allergy can be?

you’re all equally at fault and failed that poor child.

I suggest going back to your work tomorrow with some new systems you could use. We use a red mat for the child & then a red plate to match, this signifies allergies.

The whole “not my fault” attitude is frightening.

my Dd’s nursery cocked up once and she was nearly given a meal she couldn’t have. The one thing that stood out was the staff explaining where the procedure had fallen down and the fact that they all had a “but I personally should have done better” attitude about it.

I felt very confident there wouldn’t be any more near misses, and there wasn’t.

if all the staff were focussed on blaming someone else my child would be removed.

Apparently it can take 7yrs for all of the colon to fully repair. So in tolerances might actually be causing serious autoimmune reactions.

No that doesn’t follow. Knowing the child is no dairy doesn’t mean they know you’ve not provided a dairy free meal.

when you handed the meal for the child did you explicitly state that the meal contained dairy?

But HOW do the room staff know what allergens are in the meal?

Are you supposed to tell them? Did you tell them?

How do you know? Do you personally check all the labels on the ingredients? Does someone else tell you what allergens are in the meal? How do they know?

If a recipe of something you buy in, like sausages or bread, changed - how would you know? Do you check every time you use an ingredient?

The whole place sounds like a complete shitshow. People signing paperwork without reading it and 'forgetting' a child they work with on a daily basis has an allergy.

Imagine you're in a court charged with manslaughter because the child died. What should have happened today that did not happen? What rules were broken? Who broke them?

AND STILL you are passing the buck the main meal had dairy in the room staff knew. Maybe the room staff thought the kitchen had enough knowledge to use a dairy free alternative so the meal looked the same .Stop buck passing sharpen up your procedures and take responsibility for the fuck up.Literally have lives depending on your decisions! Read Natashas law