Nursery sending children home due to a piece of undercooked chicken

[Nurserypoisoning]

AIBU to not collect my child following this message from their nursery?

During meal time today, a staff member has found a piece of undercooked chicken in the children's chicken curry.
We are dealing with this very seriously but in the mean time, we advise that all parents come collect their children and keep close eye on them developing any symptoms of food poisoning.
We have checked through the left overs and not found any more pieces of raw chicken but for safety measure, we advise you collect and follow advice of 111. Food poisoning can be very serious for our little ones and we deeply apologise for this.
As mentioned above, we are taking this incident very seriously and will provide more information ASAP.

Despite the use of the word “advise”, some parents are saying the nursery are insisting. I’ve yet to speak with them.

Sending children home because of one piece of undercooked chicken in one child’s meal feels like an overreaction to me. They’ve done the right thing in telling us and suggesting collecting children but insisting seems completely unnecessary. I wonder whether they’ve got this guidance from Oftsed or 111, or whether they’re just making it up?

My current plan is to wait for them to phone and if they do phone I will ask:

Have you reported this to Ofsted?
Who has suggested all children need to go home?
Will you refund me for today’s session?

AIBU? We love the nursery and totally understand mistakes can happen. I expect them to report to Ofsted but other than that I am fairly relaxed about this. Am I being too relaxed? They have a 5* food hygiene rating, if relevant.

I would 100% ignore that communication. What are they on about?! They want to send all kids home for the rest of the day, in case someone later develops food poisoning?

I’d be in a meeting unavailable to pick up my kid if they should phone.

It's a weird message overall but the word "advise" is pretty clear. It's not a command. It's probably just for the overprotective parents who would rush to A&E if this happened at home.

Seems a bit much to send them all home?

Also I’ve had campylobacter before from undercooked chicken, it was absolutely horrendous but doctor said symptoms show 3-5 days, so the littles wouldn’t even be sick yet anyway potentially

It might show up in a few days, or they might be perfectly fine

I wouldn’t have thought a communication to say this has happened, these are our steps going forward, and to keep an eye would be sufficient?

There are specific things a nursery needs to report to Ofsted such as a broken bone, outbreak of food poisoning.

Why do you think it’s not serious enough for children to go home as a precaution but it is serious enough for Ofsted to get involved?

That's going to send any anxious parents into meltdown mode! I think they could have got the message across without hitting the panic button like that.

as per pp some types of chicken-bourne food poisoning take a good few days to fester. I would not be collecting and would be sending dc in daily until/if they developed symptoms. And then if they did get ill I would get them tested to see if it was food poisoning so that it can be properly investigated as a public health issue.

@AnnaBalfour Why do you think it’s not serious enough for children to go home as a precaution but it is serious enough for Ofsted to get involved?

I guess it would demonstrate they are taking it seriously and self reporting to their regulator in the spirit of “nothing to hide”.

Just checking, are you in the UK?
Food poisoning from undercooked chicken in the UK is vanishingly unlikely. I literally wouldn’t bat an eyelid at this. What are they on about?

If someone gets a jippy tummy then oh well, but to send all the kids home just in case? Nah. Someone wants the afternoon off.

@Thebloodynine yes, in the UK. I was also of the impression that it is pretty unlikely any of them will get food poisoning from this but wanted to sense check I wasn’t under-reacting !

I would quietly wonder if there’s more to it. Ie do they pretty much know for sure that all of the curry contained undercooked chicken. I dunno. It’s weird, but the fact it is weird would make me go and get my child

I would want some clarity on whether they're intending to not allow the children who ate the curry back to nursery until the several day incubation period is up?!

It seems quite bizarre - are they thinking the DC are all going to start being ill within the next couple of hours or something? It sounds like a kneejerk reaction from someone who doesn't actually understand how food poisoning works.

There’s no way they’d involve Ofsted unnecessarily and I doubt Ofsted would be interested if it doesn’t fall within the remit of what should be reported.

I would expect follow up from the nursery about how this happened if they use a catering company.