Cut head at soft play & possible GDPR breach

[Springbaby2023]

My DS (4) cut his head at soft play yesterday. He was in a tunnel so I didn’t see it happen (albeit I was right outside the tunnel so he was supervised) but he has a small deep cut on his head that needed glue. It looks like it’s been caused by something sharp although he can’t remember how it happened and it’s right on his forehead so not an obvious bump to the head.

I’ve emailed the soft play asking if they’ll investigate this but not had a response as of yet.

Is there anyone I should be reporting them to from a health and safety point of view?

Secondly, a woman working at the soft play text me last night at about 10pm. I can only assume she got my number from our online booking and has messaged from her personal phone. This seems to me a bit of a breach of data protection but not sure if I’m being over sensitive?

Any advice on if I should be taking this any further appreciated. I mainly just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.

What did she text you? If it was about the accident then surely that is a legitimate use of information. How do know its a personal not work mobile?

She just text asking how my son was. I just assumed it was a personal number due to it being 10pm at night, felt a bit different to a call from business number during business hours.

Yes you are being over sensitive.

oversensitive. and why didn't you look in the tunnel yourself at the time? That would have been the quickest way of establishing what had happened. I hope your son is OK, I would personally just file it under "these things happen". Not possible for anywhere to be 100% safe. I would have checked the tunnel though, to see if there was anything obvious

You can report to your Local Authority although I'd personally wait to see what the response is first. If the problem is identified and rectified then the LA are unlikely to do anything further.

There's no GDPR breach here.

It's not a GDPR breach. You emailed for an investigation and someone from the business you emailed has contacted you to show concern and ask how your son is. What did you expect?

It's impossible to tell if a mobile number is work or business, and for many people (particularly business owners and managers) there's a considerable degree of overlap and the distinction may be moot.

Not a breach of GDPR but you should pursue how it happened. There shouldn’t be anything exposed at softplay that could cause a small, deep cut, it almost sounds like a puncture wound.

It's not a GDPR breach. Your email was deemed to be serious enough to warrant a phone call late at night, it shows they are taking things seriously and don't want to wait until the morning. I expect it was a senior manager or their safeguarding lead. I used to run a children's activity and often worked at night on admin stuff. I f I had an email saying a child had been injured at my activity then absolutely I would respond at night.

The email didn’t include my phone number and was asking about whether it would be investigated. The text was from the woman who was working in the day and just asked how the little man was doing. No acknowledgement that they’d received my email or anything about investigating what had happened.

Yes it’s exactly like a puncture wound

I expected some sort of response to my email to acknowledge they’d received it and that they would be looking into how it happened to prevent any more injuries. Not just a text message not acknowledging the email and just asking how my son was (when I had detailed how he was in the email).

Because blood was pouring from his head absolutely covering everything, my priority was to retrieve him and look after him and get him to hospital rather than looking in the tunnel to see what caused it, especially as it was just me with both him and my 1 year old. I couldn’t leave the baby unsupervised and my son bleeding out everywhere while I looked in the tunnel to see whatever it was that caused it, funnily enough that wasn’t my priority at the time, but I would like them to look at it so that the same thing doesn’t happen to others.

She may not have seen your email when she text.

It’s not a gdpr breech. A person who works there contacted you regarding your sons injury.

You will have also given your number when they did the accident form.

and honestly, why are you bothered by this? They showed some concern.

@Itsonlymashadow I’m not massively bothered which is why I said that was the second issue. The main one was how do I make sure they look into it to stop whatever sharp object it was causing injury to someone else.

I can’t explain why but the text just seemed a bit odd, and I didn’t give a number on any accident form. I did say I was probably being over sensitive to it though which was why I was asking the question. It just felt odd.

Sounds like an appropriate response from the soft play and absolutely not a breach of GDPR or DPA 18. An injury requiring a hospital visit is a serious event and serious events warrant phone calls not emails or texts. eg my DD was injured at school and the headteacher called that evening - well out of work hours - to check how she was and talk me through what they were doing to address the hazard.

Genuinely wondering how you think they could have done right by you.

It’s not a GDPR breach and why are you so focused on this anyway? Banging on about this runs the risk of obscuring the real issue. Surely your concern is your child was hurt in the soft play and they need to be investigating that, if you feel they are not responding appropriately contact your local council.

@Baklavamama I was expecting a phone call during business hours I guess from a supervisor or manager, and / or a response to my email about how it happened. Not a text at 10pm at night not mentioning the points I’d made in email and from the girl working there rather than a supervisor.

Did you just take your child away to hospital and not tell anyone at the soft play centre what had happened? Surely you alerted someone that there had been an accident?

If you did and they didn't immediately check all of the equipment then you would have a legitimate complaint but if you haven't told anyone who works there then I don;t know what you expect them to have done about it.

I do feel they need to be investigating and asked them to do so and haven’t received a response so was wondering where I need to report this to further, if indeed I do. That was the main reason for posting.

My second question was about the phone number as I just felt uneasy about it. I did say it was the second issue and the first was about investigating the incident. I also said that I may have been over sensitive about it and I’ve told I have been which is fine, I’m just explaining to PPs about why I felt it was odd / answering their questions.

My main concern is how to make sure they look into it so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Yes I told the woman working there

You have raised your concern and I am sure they will investigate, but I don't think they have any legal duty to report back to you about their investigation. I think you need to let it go, kids have accidents, I presume he has no lasting injury or you would not be posting here and would instead be in hospital with him.

@MalbecandToast thank you that’s all I was asking really, whether I needed to do anything further from a health and safety point of view just to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else as it seems like it was something that shouldn’t be in there

What unlawful use of your personal data i.e your mobile number has occurred?

They text to see how your child was, that is the lawful reason for processing your data.

No data breach has occurred.

@Wowthatwasabigstep thank you that’s all I was wondering, I genuinely don’t know hence asking the qu

Did you inform the softplay centre at the time of the accident?