Serious accident at nursery

[Incywincyspidee]

My child had a serious accident at nursery whilst playing with a piece of equipment (not a toy/should not have been accessible). He was playing with this unsupervised for 2 mins or so whilst the staff were distracted. He subsequently had to go to hospital and have the injury attended to under general anaesthetic. He has been going there for several years and I have never had an issue with this nursery, but I’m unsure now of what to do. The staff/owner were apologetic and take full responsibility. My child loves this nursery and has friends there, but I’m not sure what is best to do going forward? If you were in my shoes what would you do?

Surely the nursery should be putting in an incident report to whoever they’re answerable to so that it can be investigated and lessons can be learned.

I can’t imagine what that was but I got freaked out by reading this !!

Plenty of accidents happen at home too. Even parents can't remove all hazards and have an eye on them every second of the day.

I think your reaction was perfect, big concern and carefully thinking about if you need to do anything. Im glad you're happy with the resolution, it is SO hard leaving them at nursery!

IME (dc hospitalised after incident at nursery) Ofsted were a waste of space. Although the nursery was unable to show Ofsted evidence the following day that they had been doing safety checks, Ofsted gave them 2 weeks to produce it and the nursery remained open. Unsurprisingly the nursery were able to pull together a sheet of "inspections" by the deadline.

The local authority looked into it as they licence nurseries and had the nursery owner present for the entirety of the meeting (I was given sight of the minutes at a later date). They decided that the owner had learned lessons and could continue to operate.

We found a different nursery who we were very happy with and provided the ongoing medical support required. The original nursery's communication with other parents was evasive and didn't clarify what had happened or steps put into place to stop it happening again. However some parents knew what had happened and the lack of transparency shown by the nursery led to other children being removed from the setting by concerned parents. They also struggled to keep staff as the incident was the talk of the early years provision community in the area. These factors rather than action by the authorities led to the nursery closing down after a few months.

What I did discover was that although Ofsted didn't publish negative correspondence about settings from parents on their website you could obtain them if you wrote to Ofsted and requested to see it.

The OP can take out a civil claim against the nursery which was what we were advised to do by the local authority. However this is a long drawn-out process and may impact on the mental well-being of the dc.

Ok, now you've revealed exactly what the item of equipment was, my view has changed. A water channel is every day nursery equipment and not that big. Children use them every day. It's not ideal your child was climbing on it but children climb on anything and I've seen/heard of children breaking bones from a mere slip or fall from the lowest height.

In my instance, the child was left unattended in a highchair and not strapped in. Child climbed out and fell resulting in serious head injury. Serious safeguarding incident. This or similar is what I wrongly assumed was the nature of your accident.

In your situation I would meet with the nursery to discuss which you have done. I wouldn't necessarily go straight to Ofsted for what is a normal childhood accident that could easily happen at home with parents or in the park. If you are otherwise happy with the nursery I would let it go. If the nursery is a decent and good nursery they will have followed their correct procedure for accidents and reported themselves if they need to. At the very least they will be able to demonstrate that they have risk assessed and how they will do things differently if they feel they should.

I am fortunate yes, but even if I needed childcare I wouldn't opt for a nursery. My advice to OP would be to explore other options.

DD had an accident at nursery that needed a surgical fix. Staff had screwed improvised toys to the wall - badly. She caught her face on a screw. We reported to Ofsted and to the local authority which licenses nurseries - that's what I suggest you do. The LA looked at the building. It also affected their Ofsted rating. DH was allowed to go round and inspect too, and he found a few nails in the fence which were sitting proud. Management improved, and we continued to send both children there.

There are no options that wouldn't have a risk of accidents.

Cause childminders are better?

Does your kid usually like to climb things etc? I ask because I was a kid who did and had a lot of accidents at home and at nursery/school - I have many siblings who were different but my mother said she one day realised that there’s some kids like how I was and you couldn’t change them lol so basically I would always be doing something that would end in an accident even if there was nothing really unsafe about the environment and even though people tried to keep their eyes on me so I agree with a previous poster that maybe it was an unfortunate accident and not that anyone did anything wrong really?
but I get it can be worrying and I hope the staff understand your concerns too and help you feel at ease x

My son had an accident at school, he was playing on one of those large metal scooters (usually red). There was no rubber on the handles and the end of the handle was sharp. He fell and cut his lip and chin and bent his front teeth (adult sob) out of place. Thanks to our utterly useless hospital where he endured a 8 hour wait to see a doctor who was not trained in any way to manage the injury so arrange for us to go to a hospital an hour away (who were openly disgusted at the poor treatment first time I’ve ever seen a hospital slate another hospital) it was too late for stitches so ds has 4 scars on his chin. Thankfully the amazing dental team (at the second hospital) saved and straightened his teeth. I haven’t set foot in our local hospital since.

School were extremely apologetic put new risk assessment in place and obviously binned the bike. It didn’t occur to me to report it but in hindsight maybe I should have.

I know the type of equipment you mean, OP and I really dislike them being left out for children to access themselves- I imagine children throwing them at each other. Personally I put the ones in our setting away in the shed when not in use, but apparently they should be left out for DC to access independently.
I think in the accident that happened was probably “one of those things” but could have been prevented if staff had been more attentive. If your DC is happy at the nursery, I would say leave him there, as the staff will have had a massive wake up call about being attentive, and so your DC is probably scared there than in a new setting.