Another fatal incident at nursery

[TJk86]

I really dislike nurseries for under 3s for many reasons but it seems that they are not even safe anymore these days. Every other week a story like this pops up on the news. To think a reform is needed to make nurseries safer (Better ratios for example)? In this instance, it’s also been decided that no one will bear the consequences of this accident which must be awful for the parents.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15177433/Toddler-allergies-died-following-medical-episode-nursery-given-dairy-yogurt-mistake-parents-say.html

I just looked it up and he choked but no further details have been released yet.

A feeling of frequency doesn't make it a fact though. It is rare, which is why when it does happen it makes the news.

Some kind of reform is needed to make it financially and professionally possible for a parent to stay at home with their children until they are old enough to go to school, without taking the kind of hit that makes having kids unviable in today's economic climate.

I was lucky enough to be able to send my kids to 2 excellent nurseries while I worked. Then to a competent and caring childminder. No situation is 100% safe for a child. And that includes being at home, travelling in a car, sharing a home with a dog, playing on a climbing frame etc.
Any death of a child in a care setting is awful, but it is just nasty scaremongering to say that "nurseries aren't safe." They are safe. Safer than many kids' homes, sadly. Maybe nursery should be mandatory for all, to save those kids from their home situations? That is crazy of course, but it makes more sense than "nurseries aren't safe."

I didn’t because like others have said I needed reliable childcare in an inflexible job. Being a SAHM was not an option so all mine went to nursery aged 1.

At that time I met lots of childminders at various baby/toddler groups not bothered about what their charges were doing. I also wanted to know exactly where my children were… too many childminders just seemed to go about their day running errands with the children in tow. That never seemed particularly safe to me.

Thanks for replying. I thought it was standard across all UK schools. Or is it just primaries maybe?

I always thought we are lucky thst it's nuts as all schools and nurseries dx has attended were nut free. It must be so much harder if someone is allergic to milk. Much more difficult to avoid.

Children are not “dying in nurseries every other week” Ridiculous scaremongering nonsense. And anyway, the number of deaths in nurseries or schools is dwarfed by deaths of children in their own homes in the company of their loving parents.

I'm in a sixth form school.

@CautiousLurker01 when I worked in nurseries, there was a strong focus on not ‘othering’ the children with allergies.

We weren’t allowed to sit them on a table together or provide them with anything other than a placemat at mealtimes (which all children needed to have) with the allergies written and then covered with their plate.
We couldn’t have the allergies listed in a prominent place as it would breach confidentiality.

At one point we had children with allergies to:
Egg
Dairy
Egg, dairy, sesame, soya, citrus
Tomatoes

All in the same room and all under 2 years, but toddling round and wanting whatever their peers were eating.
It was a nightmare, particularly as lunchtime was when we’d have temp staff, or staff from other rooms who didn’t know the children covering for staff on break.
We did occasionally have a child eat or drink something they shouldn’t, but we always told the parents and it was never serious, luckily.

If my child had a serious allergy, there’s no way I’d send them to a nursery.

Schools might be nut avoiding but you definitely cannot assume they are nut free if they allow children to bring food in.
One of the problems with called schools 'nut free' is it creates a false sense of security.

Wow. I do get the othering thing… but as a parent - like you I suspect - I’d rather they were othered than dead? I mean, we don’t hide a disabled child's callipers or wheelchair for fear of othering, do we?

Yes its hard to be totally nut free.

I remember when we had a student with a severe nut allergy, emails were sent to the canteen to get rid of products with nuts.

Two weeks later a student found products with nuts in the canteen. It wasnt obvious but if you looked down the list of infredients there was some nuts

They send out reminders not to give anything with nuts in the packed lunch and I am not sure if the kids with packed lunch sit in the dinner hall as well. Probably they would and you are right, unless the school checks every lunch box and asks for ingredients of anything that comes without packaging you cant be sure. So I guess you are right. I think i need to have another word with the school. I think, they also dont keep dc's epi pen with them at all times (unlike nursery) but keep them in central school office, which is a bit worrying.

Did you just put nursery, child labour and prostitution all in the same sentence while questioning your privilege?

Bravo 👏

Exactly this.

The Daily Mail article does not give any of these details. The allergy history and if there had been previous anaphylaxis, the availability of adrenaline, if adrenaline was given, the response time of the ambulance etc. Presumably those details were available to the CPS who took the decision not to prosecute any individual.

Children have died at home due to allergic reactions, should those parents be prosecuted?

If there was a failure of the nursery to monitor, train or supervise staff or to have adequate policies in place, that should be the focus of the local authority investigation.

That is absolutely tragic and I agree with the decision not to scramble around to find a charge to fit a mistake.

Ultimately early years needs an absolute overhaul, the amount of regulation and general pressure does not fit the pay, same as with social care.

It's not the low-paid nursery worker who should get the blame and be prosecuted. Someone in the nursery management decided what staffing level to set for food times. Someone decided not to have a staff member with specialist training and responsibility for allergy management ahd monitoring of the children with allergies. Those are the people who should face justice.

Make sure your child knows that food at school is not automatically 'safe' or nut free and they cannot ever accept food or swap food outside of their own school meal.

Shocked that a parent would put their child at risk by sending their child to nursery with so many different staff and so many children that are having milk products, they use so many apprentices as they are cheap labour, but parents pay well over the odds.
So sad this has happened.

There are good nurseries and good child minders, and bad nurseries and bad childminders. And every shade in between.

The reality is with a child with allergies I knew I had to go with a nursery not a childminder, because what would happen it the child did have an anaphylactic reaction - the childminder would have had to have popped my child in an ambulance on his own because she could hardly leave a bunch of preschool children unsupervised

My children never had an anaphylactic reaction at nursery. They have had one each when in their dad's care, one at cubs, one at a friend's house, and one each at school

I imagine that poster is longterm unemployed, so doesn’t consider the need to pay for things.

Yeah, you need to have another chat. Parents aren't all going to follow the instructions
The EpiPen is no use if it's elsewhere in the building.
Also make sure they know not to move the child if they are having a reaction. I have had to explain this over and over to schools/teachers. Standing up, or walking around, can make a bad reaction much worse. In all the fatalities from allergies at school that I have read about teachers did stupid things like send the child to walk to the first aid room

My children's nursery staff were far more impressive than any school staff have ever been.
Not only did they have really robust procedures,.they always rang me if they had questions, and they didn't just take safety seriously they also took inclusion seriously. They were the gold standard and no school teacher /staff have come close. Perhaps we were lucky but nursery set my expectation sky high and the lack of care and complacency from teachers has shocked me again and again. As you say, given the discrepancies in pay and education you would expect the opposite!

I remember chatting to a childminder who happily told me that (1) social work, or whoever inspects CM, had asked her to instal a safety gate (2) she bought one for their inspection (3) she binned it the following day, as she had no intention of using it

And a friend of a friend was a childminder. Their house was really, really dirty

I think a really good childminder probably is the best option. but some aren't that great, and in a nursery, less risk of being plumped in front of cartoons all afternoon

Yep. People too often confuse 'is' with 'should' on issues like this.