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

Same as you'd do at home if you had 3 under 5s and one was a liability!
Take the baby with you
Put one in a playpen
Have a playroom with a stairgate etc

I agree. I work in a school with a nursery class. The nursery staff are excellent and experienced, the kitchen staff are vigilant and experienced, all the permanent staff are allergen and epi-pen trained. We have a school epi pen available for those with unknown allergies which could happen for the first time in anyone. The children wear allergy lanyards, anyone with a severe allergy has a specific additional member of staff literally just staying with them when they eat lunch to supervise them. There are the usual photos of children with allergies in the kitchens, treatment protcols for each individual, individual healthcare plans etc. The senior leaders hold meetings with the parent when they start to discuss their needs indepth. If there any special foods used in class for celebrations or food tech etc we sent messages home to all parents to ask them to check ingredients for allergens etc. i am confident that my setting does everything allergy-related correctly.

BUT, the staffing ratios when a qualified teacher is present is 1:13 during the rest of the day. So only 2 staff for 26 children. It's just not enough in my view. So many children are now starting at nursery with minimal basic skills compared to years ago, such as being able to use the toilet, or even get their own coat on and off. On top of that you've got children coming in who clearly have undiagnosed additional needs which their parent purposely didn't tell us about in case we advised that they look elsewhere, no funding for one to one support.

All it needs is a high level of sudden staff sickness due to a virus and things can run a bit less smoothly. It's very hard to get nursery supply staff as not many people want to do it. Often the ones who do come do not have English as their first language and if that happens you've then you've got a language barrier for a start off. We try to juggle things around and use our own staff who know the children and their needs better but honestly, in some schools there could be rare occasions when there are a lot of less than excellent supply staff in school because what's the alternative?

My guess is that in this particular school nursery, there was a set of unusual events all happening at once and even though 99% of the time any of those happening all at once would have just meant a stressful day for the staff and a bit of a less than perfect day's education for the children, tragically this one time, something has gone horribly horribly wrong.

It is entiretly possibe that something similar to this happened; a load of staff are off sick with a virus that's doing the rounds. The child with the allergy could have come to school with an item of food in their clearly marked bag for snack time. A supply person has been instructed to be careful about this particular child and given a full run down of their allergy needs and told "their bag is there clearly marked, their parent sends safe food in for their snack, please could you get it and supervise them eating it and make sure they don't go near the other children's snacks?"

But unbeknown to everyone, the child was picked up by a relative the night before and somehow a packet of food ended up in the child's bag without the parent seeing it. The bag was brought to school next day as usual. The supply staff assumed the snack in the bag was safe as the usual teacher told them that the parent sends it in from home so they didn't check the pack and anyway even if they did their English language skills are not fantastic and they are not allergy-trained so are not 100% sure what they're looking for.

If it did happen in a similar way then what a tragic and awful way for all concerned to realise that even if you thought you had everything covered, this one time things just went horrbly wrong.

Having worked in a nursery I can well imagine how this would happen.
For some reason nurseries (Ofsted?) absolutely prefer children not to be physically labelled or marked out as having allergies.
There will be a system in place where the kitchen knows how many allergy meals are going to each room and a handover to the room staff that should ensure the correct meals go to the correct child.
But all that needs to happen is someone makes a mistake, there's staff covering the room who don't know all the children's names, a child has swapped days, some emergency happens in the room (child falls off their chair or throws up), the room leader is on annual leave, and the systems get disrupted.

Totally agree with nannies/childminders being a safer option for allergic children purely on the basis of information sharing. The childminder will have definitely had training, speaks directly to the parent, is always there with the child and cooks, serves, feeds the food themselves. Just less links in the chain for something to go wrong.

Well yes thats what I would do as a childminder. I know the children well and if I can't leave them alone then I dont. The vast vast majority of children are absolutely fine to be left for 60 seconds whilst I pee.

Yet that's what parents do with their own children. They are out and about with them, going to the supermarket, chatting about the things they're buying, the children get used to talking to other customers and staff. Errands are not useless in a small child's world. They are a learning opportunity.

Oh yeah, that disgraceful woke attitude of not "othering" children with specific allergy needs goes against every parenting instinct I have. The need to keep a child safe trumps all, particularly when they are too young to advocate for themselves. The younger that children learn that some children do have specific dietary needs for a very good reason AND THAT IS OK AND NOT SHAMEFUL FOR THEM, the more normal it is for them to grow up being aware of and accepting of, allergies in the general population.

I agree. I make so many mistakes in my work, but fortunately nobody's life or wellbeing depends on me

There's a world of difference between the police determining that criminal convictions aren't appropriate and there being no legal reprocussions.

The police's decision not to charge means that nobody is going to be convicted and charged or murder, manslaughter or alike (which is in line with similar, past cases) but the nursery can likely expect the parents to bring a civil claim, there will likely be regulatory action and (for relevant staff) professional consequences.

And the fact that this was an "honest mistake" by a (very likely) low paid worker is relevant. No doubt we've all made mistakes at work but most of us aren't in jobs where death is a reasonably foreseeable outcome from an administrative error. Who on earth would ever be willing to work in a nursery where an unintentional error isn't just going to see you disciplined (or losing your job, or accreditation) but is reasonably likely to see you sentenced to years in prison? Very few jobs come with that level of risk and most that do are highly skilled, high-paying professions.

No, the child died because someone gave that child the thing he’s allergic TO, so someone IS to blame!

So much this. I had a coworker who went off the rails with thinking that people were constantly trying to kidnap her children. Mind you in broad daylight in the middle of a busy store. She literally thought that thousands upon thousands of children were snatched by strangers each year. I showed her the statistics of how many stranger abductions happened in the United States the previous year. 71 children. She didn't believe me. I also pointed out that by far the person most likely to kill a child is their own parent or caretaker. Still didn't believe me. I gave up after that

Yes, it’s what parents do. It’s not what we wanted for childcare. For the same reason we decided against employing a nanny or an au pair even though that would’ve saved a fortune on nursery for 3 children!

@BluntPlumHam and not everyone who chooses to use a nursery is neglectful. Do you understand this?

We waited to have our children - qualifying in our professions, building our careers, moving from a flat to a home - all intentional.

We still chose to use a nursery because it was a fabulous setting we were lucky to find and it was beneficial for our DC.

I never mentioned the word privilege. You did though.

Not putting your children into nursery is not a superior parenting choice. Check your bias.

Putting babies under 3 that is, in a nursery is a necessity, I honestly have no idea why you would otherwise. I didn’t say neglect, you did.

I am 'some childcare worker' myself so I'm including myself in that. There are loads of us and we've all made mistakes. I meant it to be a generalisation not derogatory, could have been anyone.

Attracting people to the profession is important and difficult, so punishing someone with a long prison sentence (manslaughter?) is going to make that harder. It is relevant. In the meantime you have overworked and underpaid staff, recently qualified staff in supervisory positions, etc etc because they're just aren't enough staff.

And no, we are in no way 'paid to do a responsible job'. As another poster said, in jobs where a mistake can lead to death, and the perpetrator of that mistake is made to take full responsibility, including prison, you would be expecting a very high wage indeed. My son worked at B & Q and earned more than me from the day he joined! What kind of responsibility are you expecting this poor person to take?

Attracting people to the profession is important and difficult, so punishing someone with a long prison sentence (manslaughter?) is going to make that harder. It is relevant. In the meantime you have overworked and underpaid staff, recently qualified staff in supervisory positions, etc etc because they're just aren't enough staff.

Yep. Whether anyone likes it or not, roles with high responsibility and low pay are hard to fill. See also, the care sector. Taking action that makes this even harder will make settings less safe because of the risk of worse understaffing. We'd need real structural change in order to remedy this, ratios would have to be better and that's not cheap.

It would be difficult to prove manslaughter but death by negligence for sure. You cannot hide behind low pay and over worked excuses. You have a duty of care to every child in your care, loco parentis. Parent’s can over look certain things such as cuts, bruises from falling or not wiping their children after the toilet etc but to suggest that giving a child a substance known to be fatal to them is simply an oversight isn’t good enough. Someone has lost their everything because of someone’s negligence.

Attracting people to the profession is a separate issue however I agree convictions and sentences will certainly be a deterrent and so be it. I don’t want people who don’t have a basic standard of professionalism and sense of duty entering said profession anyway.

There are far too many child care workers entering the profession so they can do a few hours to top up their benefits/uc or stay at home with their own children. It shouldn’t be a place for school drop outs or individuals who need a part time job.

Yes but there is a difference between taking your own 4 year old to the toilet with you and a CM taking a child into the bathroom while they basically undress their bottom half and use the toilet in front of the child, isn't there? It wouldn't bother me if a CM did it but I'm sure it would bother other parents. Hence why I'm asking!

You can't please everyone!

The childminder has to go to the loo. She (presume a she) will know whether any of the children in her care will hurt another, just as a child's mother will know whether her 3 year old will clunk the new baby with a brick when she goes out of the room. It's a risk. But the higher adult to child ratio of a childminding place is safer than a nursery where there is likely a high turn-over of staff and where instructions can get muddied or forgotten.
Best of all, bring up your own child. I know this is hard and that financially it can be a problem, which is why I advocate for funding aimed at childcare to go to parents to be used as they think fit, including helping a mother to stay at home with her child/children at least part-time. It isn't currently aimed this way as the money is aimed at getting women back to (preferably f/t) paid work (since this is the only work valued in a neo-liberal consumer individualistic society) and to encourage the childcare industry (nothing to do with education, here, despite talk of socialising children etc - the Sure Start system was better for that but the Tories axed it: it made no money).

People who use childminders and nurseries are still "bringing up their own children".

I worked compressed hours 4 days a week. DH did the same. Our children spent three days a week at nursery. Plus of course that wasn't every day week of the year, we took a good 6-8 weeks off with them as holidays. I imagine that's pretty standard.

Compare that to my SAHM friends, most of whom (if they were sensible and valued their mental health and relationship) still used either a grandparent, a gym crèche, a pre school or a nursery /child minder to give them a break for at least a few mornings a week.

plus we outsourced the housework to a cleaner /housekeeper, so when we were with the children we could really enjoy being with them

And oh my goodness parenting doesn't stop with the nursery years. And thanks to climbing the career ladder during that time I can dictate my own hours and prioritise working around my teenagers needs. And they are happy thriving confident and loving teenagers.

It's interesting everyone worrying about the toilet trips. But this is a thread about allergies and my much bigger worry with children with allergies was what on earth the childminder would do it my child had an allergic reaction. She can't leave the other children alone so presumably a tiny toddler /preschooler would have to be packed off in the ambulance alone.

Well when we go out and about sometimes there's no choice. I have a technique to protect my own privacy and dignity when using the loo if a child needs to be close. I would probably take the baby anyway, not the 4 yr old.

You're also hyper fixating on a really specific scenario which even in 16 years of childminding, I've maybe had to deal with once.

Do you normally just hold on all day until the children go home?

Not sure why I am curious too now!

More importantly, what would you do if a child needed an ambulance? I guess they would go alone ?

Most cms have emergency procedures in place to deal with this. Ask yours.

I work closely with 2 other cms and the other children could be dropped with them until parents arrive. Or actually the time that an ambulance arrived and stabilised the child and was ready to be taken to hospital, either the ill child's parents will have arrived to go with them or the other parents could collect so I was free.

The ambulance arriving and leaving usually isn't instant! It takes some time to arrive and then they would usually treat/stabilise the child before leaving.
I have a childminder friend and my mum (DBS checked, first aid & safeguarding trained) both less than half a mile from my house so they are my emergency plan.
In the scenario that the ambulance arrived and needed to leave before a parent or emergency contact on the child could arrive, I would leave the other children with my emergency back ups.
It's possible that a child's parents and emergency contacts wouldn't be available and my emergency back ups wouldn't be available so in that pretty unlikely situation the child would be in the ambulance alone and parents would meet them at the hospital.

I would definitely suggest to parents that if their child has a serious medical condition, they arrange childcare that is within a short travelling distance of their workplace or near their emergency contact.