what do you do with your mindees if one of them suddenly needs an ambulance?

[greenbananas]

Sorry, this is a bit long, but I hope somebody can help me because this issue is really bothering me (and I have had the odd sleepness night because of it).

I am partway through training/registering as a childminder, and have got to the stage of thinking about what would happen if one of the children in my care needed to go to hospital very urgently. What would I do??? Would I send the sick child in the ambulance on their own and stay with the other mindees (this would be completely terrifying for the sick child and probably not even legal) or would I go in the ambulance with them and try to get somebody else to care for the other children, call all the parents and stay until their parents were able to collect them?

I feel that I should have a procedure in place to deal with this kind of situation. My own little son has serious multiple food allergies (for example, he reacts on skin contact to foods with even traces of dairy or nuts in them) and has had to go in an ambulance twice so far. Obviously, I plan to minimise the risk of him going into anaphylactic shock!!! and one of the ways I already do this is by excluding all of his allergens from my home (when childminding, I will provide all meals/snacks and make all the birthday treats etc.) However, there will always be a small risk of him having a serious reaction - and, of course, any of the other children in my care might also need to go in an ambulance at short notice, for all sorts of unimaginable reasons...

Does anyone have any ideas? I have a few crazy ones floating about in my head... for example, if we are at home, I could pre-arrange for staff from a local shop to rush in and take care of the children/call their parents. If we were out and about, would the police send someone? (on the principle that there were children alone and at risk) - the police would be quick, and I could prepare a pack with contact details etc. that I carried with me at all times...

I suppose I am particularly aware of this problem because I have once seen my son go into anaphylactic shock, and I know that keeping the ambulance hanging around waiting for parents to collect children is not a possibility.

Thank you for reading all this. I'll be so grateful if any of you experienced people out there can help me.

A similar(ish) situation happened when DS1 was at childminders. The CM's DS2 (age 6yrs) slammed a door shut, trapping the fingers of her DS3 (age nearly 1yr) and slicing off the top of his finger. My DS1 (age 2 years) was the only CM'd child there. The CM's DH ( a shift worker) was at home, fortunately, so all 5 of them (ie 2 adults, 3 children) piled into car and headed for hospital. On the way to the hospital, CM's DH spotted an ambulance stopped at traffic lights - jumped out to talk to them, and they were able to take CM and their DC3 to hospital by ambulance.

CM's DH then headed back home with our DS1 and his DS2. (CM's DH was also registered as CM). Called my DH, who then picked up DS1.

Sorry bit of a long and convoluted story, and not quite the same as the sort of emergency you have experienced, OP (although still an emergency obv).
I guess prob not ideal, in retrospect, to be flagging down ambulance stopped at traffic lights, but think that sometimes in emergency situations, you may have to resort to some degree of creativity. Thinking & planning ahead should avoid much of this though.

My network co-ordinator asked me this once and tbh I was stumped. She said that it is ok to leave the children with a trusted nieghbour if you absolutly had too. So that is without signing anything or parental permission or anything, just use your best judgement, then as soon as possilbe, to contact Ofsted, explain the situation, what you did, why you did, it and how you kept the children safe.

Basically use your common sense and notify ofsted.

Obviously it is MUCH better if you have a back up plan. Have a list of people you could call, and get it all written down in a policy that the parents can read. get to know other childminders in your local area. I can think of 4 of the top of my head now, that I would be happy phoning and providing they were at home, or in our local area, could get here pretty fast.

If you were to ring another childminder, it might mean them being over ratio for a while but I am sure Ofsted and parents would be ok with this, if was the safest possible option, and you notify them.

Hi, you can use unregistered people in emergencies. The important thing is to write a policy - list what you will do and WHO your children will go to - GET YOUR PARENTS TO SIGN THIS to consent. Thats REALLY important.
You will get to know other CM's and they will be more than happy for them to be your emergency backup and vice versa. Also on your mobile put under ICE (IN CASE OF EMERGENCY)(services look for this if anything happens to you) and put down a contact who knows your procedure and has a number of your emergency contacts.Also, I keep a note in my first aid kit in my buggy of all the emergency contacts and it says not all the children are mine - I am a childminder and please contact..... to collect children (thats only if s thing happens to you of course!)
I'm the worst worrier in the world and have had plenty of nightmares over the years - it could all happen - probably wont - but in worst case scenario, you have got a policy signed by all the parents to say they have read, understood and agree to your emergency policy so you will be fine!

Im a childminder and have a medical emergency plan that has been approved by Ofsted. Basically its states that in an emergency I call an ambulance and the person ( parent or other nominated person) who is listed on the plan. That person then arranges to meet the child either at my house before travelling to hosputal or actually at the hospital on arrival. It states that due to other children in my care I will not be travelling with the ambulance. Obv this only is suitable for minded chilldren, not my own, but am happy to send you a copy if you want. I had to put something into place as one of my mindes had a fit at home and parents were told to call an ambulance immediately if he had another one ( which thankfully he never did) but it made me think how Id cope. Hth x

Im a childminder and have 2 back up child minders who all my minded child ren know by sight and name.
if this option failed I would put the rest in the car, and follow along behind.
My own children are almost 10 and 13, I would call my parents/sister first, or my neighbour across the road, and I would be quite happy to leave them at home on their own till either of them arrived to pick them up.

This once happened to me when DS had a severe allergic reaction.
I was working alone at the time - DH now works with me - and I had an emergency backup childminder. In the event, I barely had time to ring round the parents and inform them before the ambulance arrived. My backup would never have made it in time.

I left the children with an unregistered but luckily CRB-checked retired teacher. Ofsted will allow unregistered care in an emergency and the parents soon arrived to pick up their children so it wasn't for long.

I think what you have to bear in mind is that, in an emergency, that ambulance is fast. A child with an allergic reaction and resulting breathing difficulties is a high priority.
Whatever plan you decide, make sure it can be very quickly implemented.

In your situation, I would say the child would have to go alone in ambulance, and you and children would have a taxi follow behind.

the parents then pick up from hospital if they couldn't pick up before

you cant take children in an ambulance..

depends on each situation and severity of illness or injury..

if there is a sensible adult in your house at the time of the occurence then it makes sense to leave well children with them and get them to call parents to arrange pick ups asap...

have all phone numbers of parents on you at all times and apply commen sense.. that means dont loose sleep over this... keep it in proportion and act sensibly at the time..

you cant take children in an ambulance.. you would need to hand over sick child and follow in your car...

Greenbannas - you don't always have to stay on the phoneuntil the ambulance arrives! That's only if the patient is unconscious or very unstable and likely to stop breathing. Usually they let you off the phone.

The body- of course you can take children in an ambulance- there's just not lots of room for lots of children!

Op. You could use this as a plan for emergencies.. If you had to call 999 then you explain to the call taker that you have minded children with you. In my experience (where single parents have had an emergency or a paent has died etc) then sometimes the solo responder will stay and supervise or arrange alternative care or the police will attend and assist.

Ambulance medics often don't let children ride in the ambulance - sometimes they won't even let parents accompany their own children. Two good reasons for this are that the sick child may have something highly contagious and you wouldn't want anyone unneccessarily in a confined space with them for any time, and secondly they may need room to apply emergency medical treatment, even to resuscitate the child if it came to that, which could also be terribly emotionally upsetting for witnesses especially young children. In my opinion, if the emergency is severe enough to warrant an ambulance being called out, the medics need to be left to do their job without any hindrance.

FWIW I'd probably pile all my (other) kids into the car and follow the ambulance, then worry about contacting parents etc once we got to hospital, but that is because it would probably take too long to round up emergency carers. If I had to call a taxi, the delay there might swing the balance in favour of trying to get a neighbour in to care for the little ones and then leave them behind to be picked up from home by parents.

I think if I wasn't allowed to take my 3 week old with my dd and I in the ambulance then the chances are no children will be allowed.

Well, there must have been a particular reason why Fab. I work for the ambulance service, we often take children in the ambulance if necessary. Obviously a very young baby is harder to secure in the back of an ambulance than older children and would ony be taken if there is absolutely no other option.

They just said you can't being the baby, no discussion or reason at all.

This sort of thing worries me as a parent. We in the end went with a nanny - the what ifs did concern me where there were a lot of children with a cm (much as I liked the ones I visited)

Oh this has made me worry as a parent, not a cm.
If at all possible I'd want the cm in the ambulance with my child if I couldn't get there in time (another reason my cm is next door to where I work and not home). But, I realise this may not be possible.

We had a situation where my 11 month old mindee choked on a piece of food - I managed to dislodge it so that she was breathing however she still seemed to have something stuck in her throat, was couging up blood etc and so rang for the paramedics.

To cut a long story short, they basically would not allow my mindee to go in the ambulance alone and took it as a given that I would be going with her and carting my two sons along, which I did. There was only enough space for the three of us to be strapped in (mindee on lap, seatbelt over us both), and as my hospital has a great playroom, my two boys were kept well entertained until my mindee's mum arrived to take over. Works fine with three children, however will have four from September, and I don't drive either!!

I haven't read it all through but I seem to think that when my friend was a CM, she had me down as an emergency contact with the parents knowledge, so I would go to her house and wait with the mindees until they could be collected presumably.

I am vague because it was 4 or 5 years ago but I am fairly certain she asked me if she could name me on a form/contract with the parents. I was a SAHM who lived 5minutes walk away and generally went to the same toddler groups etc.

Thank you all so much for your responses - I really do appreciate them. I've done lots of thinking, and the only way I can see round this problem is to write in my policy that the sick child might have to go in the ambulance by themselves, although I would do everything I could to find somebody to stay with the other children. I would then call a taxi and follow the ambulance (I don't drive).

It's true that you don't always have to stay on the phone, and that there might well be time to find somebody else to take charge. However, my experience of ambulances is when my son had severe allergic reactions... the ambulance arrived within five minutes each time and I had to stay on the phone throughout in case he stopped breathing. It is heartbreaking to think of him or any other child having to travel to A&E on their own, but because of the speed at which the ambulance arrives, this may be the only feasible solution.

again, thank you all so much for helping me to think this through. Let's hope it never happens to any of us!!!