Sickness policy going against NHS guidance

[Sickofoursmellybins]

I asked to see our nursery’s illness policy today after I heard from another parent that they were asked to keep their child at home until all their spots cleared.
The policy states that with HFM they may ask parents to keep children off nursery despite the NHS guidance saying the may attend if they are not too unwell. It seems unreasonable to me that they may not allow a child with HFM to attend for 1-2 weeks when the NHS has concluded that doing so is pointless. Where do I go from here? Do I have grounds to complain?

I fail to see how NHS guidelines can be mandated to a private organisation or business. I imagine decisions are taken on context of who may be working and any extenuating circumstances e.g. vulnerable relation, pregnancy etc.

You need a plan B and C to be on hand, my employer covered a nurse minder back in the day. Not sure if employers offer such perks these days

It’s NHS guidance, it’s not the law. Private nurseries can exclude children for any reason they deem fit provided they follow their policies. If you don’t like it, you’ll need to go elsewhere (but it’s normal for nurseries to do this).

HFM can also be very mild. I imagine most working parents would be unimpressed at having to keep a well child home when it's not recommended by public health authorities who know more about this stuff than nurseries.

Absolutely. The fall out wouldn’t be worth it. Parents nowadays expect to get their own way over everything. They don’t like the word no at the best of times. But for something like this, where the government guidance clearly says not to exclude, no nursery would have a leg to stand on.

I'm all for science-backed exclusions, but the reason the NHS guidance says children don't need to be excluded is that it's so contagious it probably won't make a difference anyway (I.e the kids who catch it have probably infected others before they were off sick with it) - very much a "closing the gate after the horse had bolted" situation

I had this with nursery earlier in the year, my twins got a few spots on their hands but were otherwise well. Nursery insisted it was HFM and we had more than a week of disruption, trying to work at home with two perfectly well children who were bouncing off the walls.

The EYFS includes a sentence saying you must prevent the spread of infection. EY children touch and lick everything and everyone. They need stricter rules than, say, 14 year olds.

No you don’t have any grounds for complaint.
I assume you read and signed the t&cs before your child started?
Additionally, assuming they are a private nursery, they can make their own policy.

Children are allowed in the nursery where I work with HFM as long as there is no fever and they are well in themselves (we do send the home if they are not right).
We have never in two years had a bad outbreak, literally one or two children and that seems to be about it.
NHS guidelines are just that, guidelines and nursery can set there own policy. However they should have a detailed sickness policy. Ours is about 3 pages long and has table of illnesses, symptoms and exclusion periods so you would not be unreasonable to complain about that.