Will there be prosecutions for negligence in schools because of inadequate PPE?

[Masquecharade]

Posing a hypothetical (and to be frank, quite unpleasant) question here for the lawyers - if, in September, schools and businesses are back in fairly normal operation and cases increase, if a child was to become seriously unwell because of an outbreak at a school, would it be possible to sue the school itself? Would Governors/LEA’s be liable?

For the sake of expediency, assume the child has no other p2p contact apart from school (no shops/clubs and both parents work from home) and the track and trace system has identified school as the outbreak centre linked from another outbreak elsewhere.

The fact is, the government is doing next to nothing compared to many other countries. Masks, funding extra sinks, funding for increased ventilation, allowing using other spaces (village halls) to teach to enable social distancing, proper test and trace up and running, allowing parents who want to homeschool to do so (enabling greater social distancing for those in school). So actually, the case against the government that they are mishandling this is pretty strong. They are going against scientific advice and best practice.

Whether any legal action would be successful who knows.

I hope at the very least all schools with have an absolute zero tolerance policy for parents who send kids in sick, and that attendance targets will be binned.

Yes, also the mental health impact on children who are not stupid and can see that they might / will pass it on to adults who could be severely ill.

I wonder how the year 1s and year 6s will feel after being in small bubbles with lots of precautions if they are sent back pretty much as normal in massive bubbles in September. The year 6s at least will be asking tricky questions I'd think - such as - 'why did we need 2m distance in June when infections were lower but now, when infections are higher, we don't need 2m?'

It’s a worry that kind of thing. Gosh can you imagine if something happened to a class teacher or a head and how that would make the kids feel :(
It’s all so horrible isn’t it

I thought that the emergency legislation coronavirus bill prevents this sort of stuff happening.

The government are not forcing parents to send children into schools against their will as every parent has the option to home school.

There will always be parents who are selfish enough to send unwell children to school. A parent in DDs nursery once sent a child in with viral meningitis.

Even if younger children were kitted out in full PPE and forced to social distance there is still the potential to spread germs through hands etc.

@noblegiraffe
Schools are doing everything they can to reduce the spread of the virus that doesn't significantly effect their ability to actually teach children (which is their entire purpose). It simply isn't sustainable to keep children away from school in the long term and community buildings are needed for other groups and as hubs to organise support for the response. Clearly the supermarkets could reduce the risk to their workers by closing all of their shops but this wouldn't be balancing the risk of Covid against the guarantee of starving people to death. Similarly schools need to balance the risks of covid against the effective provision of education.

No, they’re not, Statistical, because they’re not allowed and there’s no money.

With your supermarket example my Sainsbury’s has massively reduced the number of customers allowed in at one time, put up plastic screens at checkouts, closed every other checkout, sanitised trolleys, staff allowed masks etc. The sorts of things schools aren’t allowed to do or don’t have the money to do.

I think when this is over, there will be group action against the Government by teachers, care workers and health professionals for the unnecessary risks that have been taken and the carelessness with people’s lives. The failure to even consider PPE in schools will be the downfall there - staff will die, there is no doubt in my mind about that.

I'd swear some people want to peoplen to die to be proved right be able to sue

Correct. Same people who want the second wave and are loving all the drama.

Not at all. But everything Inhave read about transmission coupled with what I know about schools means that there will be deaths. Some could be avoided, I’m sure, with the use of PPE, less students in school to support social distancing etc. On top of this, schools need to look at individual staff risk and look at what can be done to mitigate this. Nothing going on at my school although I accept other schools are doing a better job.

But even if there are deaths, it’s sadly an inevitable consequence of the virus. It doesn’t mean we can shut down schools or stop children being educated because of it. Everyone just has to live with the risk.

Senga and yet everyone else gets to live with less risk because their workplace gets to follow COVID-secure guidelines that they have disapplied from schools. That seems unreasonable, yes?

No one is talking about shutting down schools. In fact, if the provision were safer, fewer schools would have to shut down.

Has a school ever been sued over a measles outbreak? Or polio? No, as far as I’m aware.

Take in contrast Covid which seems to be harmless to children, a prosecution over an occurrence of severe illness would most likely fail for being unforeseeable. Additionally public policy would likely triumph even if they were able to establish a duty to prevent infection despite the low risk. I just don’t think there’s a duty to the student to prevent infection.

But schools haven’t had to put in place inadequate measures to suppress a measles outbreak as mandated by the government and deliberately less safe than other workplaces.

seems to be harmless to children

Teachers aren’t children. It’s odd that this needs to be pointed out.

Slept on it.

Hypothetically if I was in this situation I might not go for the school but the parent of the child or staff member who went in.

If the school had done everything they could to help prevent this, and parents aren't collecting sick children because of whatever, I would be thinking had they come and collected, the virus wouldn't have been in the building as long.

There's been threads for years about children sent to school, throw up and they tell staff they'd been ill during the night.
Sent in dosed up on some calpol so they seem well enough for school, yet again pupil tells staff about the calpol.
Parents who try and send in the bottle of calpol cos their child has a bit of a temperature or something,

Schools will have to start imposing something along the lines of if parents aren't collecting within an hour, SS will be called to collect their child. Yes it's a pain, and SS are also over stretched but if they think people are going to start suing them, they won't have any choice.

And yes I am also aware that parents don't always have anyone else to collect. I hope parents will be making plans now for emergency childcare from September, they will need it. If the school/class gets shut down nothing they will be able to do.

With everything going back to "normal" all this holiday and extended days for vulnerable and key workers will be scrapped, and the shielders will be back in.

Looking at how it's all going globally I'm seriously thinking of the possibility of de-registering so mine has consistency. The school are aware, and not just for mine they are looking at how to seamlessly do blended learning so that pupils doing their exams aren't disadvantaged even more. Like many, it's underfunded.

@Keepdistance

The gov are responsible as They know it is airborne They know there is no SD That 30+ per class is a lot Schools are getting no money for extra cleaning/cleaners They could have gone for 1 week on 1 off Or online learning Or no fines. Found more building maybe. Or masks.

This.

I just don’t think there’s a duty to the student to prevent infection

It there is a duty on parents to follow guidelines, get tested quickly, convey results to school quickly, keep their child in isolation when exposed, not send in a child with a new cough or dosed up on calpol. I can garentee that children being dosed up on calpol will be a major problem in all primaries. There is also a duty on parents to provide basics such as hand sanitizer and to teach their children to wash their hands properly when told to do so by the teacher. And that includes when the teacher isn’t watching,

What we really need are heavy fines, with fast implementation and lots of publicity to avoid sick children being deliberately sent into schools.. We need workplaces to not put pressure on their staff to be in work when they or their children are unwell and need testing, we need the government to pay SSP to those who are isolating because the test and trace service has told them to do so. In senior schools, we need the ability to remove children who insist on coughing on others for a laugh from school for the duration of the pandemic with the onus on parents to keep said child out of public areas or be heavily fined. We need some kind of threat we can hold over persistent offenders that will really hurt - criminal record (attempted murder?) and possible prison time. But mainly we need parents to recognise that if they get to use basic PPE and distancing in their workplace, so should teachers. Social distancing in senior schools is not impossible but will need some children at home for some of the time.

criminal record (attempted murder?) and possible prison time

Really? And how would you prove that the parent/child intended to kill? (CPS prosecution guidelines)

Really? And how would you prove that the parent/child intended to kill? (CPS prosecution guidelines)

Parent sending their child in knowing they were ill?

That does not prove intent to kill. What about people who go to work? As coronavirus could be anything from zero symptoms to death, what level of ‘unwell’ would it have to be?

Thank you for all of your thoughts, as I say, I’m not a lawyer so I find it all a world away but interesting points particularly about parental liability, collection of sick children, prior precedent of measles/polio, harm at work rather than risk to children and corporate manslaughter rather than intention to murder.

I also think that many people misunderstand the idea that some people are able to think over situations without wishing them to happen, indeed, sometimes with the hope that by pointing them out, they may never happen at all...

No one is talking about shutting down schools. In fact, if the provision were safer, fewer schools would have to shut down

I'm getting quite depressed that people don't seem to see this. The better the risk reduction in schools, the less time the school will spend being shut down due to positive cases in bubbles.

There is a middle ground between shutdown and everything going back to how it was when we - as a country - managed to kill more than 30,000 people in excess of what was inevitable. A middle ground that many, many countries have achieved well. It involves masks, better ventilation, more sinks, better social distancing, good test and trace. None of which the government seems to be willing to pay for.

Yea intent to kill bit much lol. Intent to cause harm or something?

We all know some parents do send in their children who should be at home. Find a way to stamp this out to help maintain some type of "normality" for their education.

At secondary level a child sent in knowingly ill could essentially send an entire year home. And as Ilove pointed out, government doesn't want to pay.

Rather than concentrating on the mask stuff think the big question is why isn't track and trace implemented yet in this country. Track and trace has been in place globally from the beginning of the year. There was no need for them to make a deal with their mate to design it. Nothing to create.

As coronavirus could be anything from zero symptoms to death, what level of ‘unwell’ would it have to be?

Given that many, many parents send their children into school knowing full well they weren't very well that morning and having dosed them up on calpol to pass any temperature test that may occur, that's enough. It's really not OK to be putting people at risk in this way - and I say the same about colds, sickness bugs, norovirus, flu etc. etc. If you know your child is ill, they need to be kept at home. End of.

Yea intent to kill bit much lol. Intent to cause harm or something?

Why lol? You might feel differently if it were you that were considered vulnerable or you had someone at home who was vulnerable. Not all of us are aged 25 without added risks. Teachers are very much at risk of getting a higher viral load because of the sheer amount of time they will be spending in poorly ventilated rooms with sick or asymptomatic people which means they are at risk of a more serious form of his illness. I am a single parent, aged 50, over weight. I live with a type 1 diabetic (around 3 to 4 times more likely of dying with covid than someone without type 1) and a 80 year old parent. So in a worst case scenario three of us potentially could die if we get this wrong in school - my children do not deserve that do they? Or we could lose our income if I am ill for an extended period of time and as a household, we depend on me being able to work. It's not 'lol'. Parents who insist on sending their obviously symptomatic children into school without first getting a clear covid test need to face some kind of prosecution, in my opinion, but this needs backing up with things like SSP for people who need to isolate and a workable track and trace system. At the moment it is a fucking shambles and I am sad to say I think people will die as a result and there will be a concerntration of deaths and serious illness amongst school staff. Fine if it's not your family but this thing really isn't discriminating in that way, is it? It sure as hell isn't 'lol'.

Definitely nothing criminal so not sure why people have got onto that. Possibly if the school don't apply the guidance they've been told to apply. Otherwise, no chance. I lawyer wouldn't take on such a case and if they did, it would be thrown out by the judge. We aren't a litigious society like the USA and there's no chance that our judges will support us becoming one, it would be madness. There may be a fair few employment law cases regarding this sort of issue though, not only for teachers.