I need help. I’m utterly distraught and upset with my sons school, does anyone have any advice?

[mummytorands]

So I’ve been awake all night with keeping my 8 year old as comfortable as possible and yesterday’s events and I wanted to go to the school today and complain about how they handled things but I think I’m going to write to the chair of governors instead so I want to box clever.

So, I leave work yesterday (I work 10 minutes from the school by car) at 2:45 my children are usually let out at 3:10-3:20. School call at 2:50 telling me my son (8) has had a fall during playtime she explained he hurt his arm, elbow hip and knee. He was grazed seen by first aid but very upset and could I get him early of course I said yes I’ll be 5 minutes. Asked then as it’s unusual for him to be as upset as she was saying as he’s quite a tough cookie has he done any damage. No she said first aid moved his arm but seems ok but he’s very upset and think it’s best you came early and that she would get my daughter for me too (5). I pull up to school a TA is bringing them both out and it was quite evident to me we needed to get to hospital. I could clearly see my son was in pain, he was holding his arm, his wrist and hand were limp. I was given no accident form but didn’t think about that until later as my main concern was to get him medical attention. I called minor injuries they said they had a 3 hour wait and they wouldn’t be able to xray today so off to a&e I went which was heaving but we were dealt with pretty swiftly. Xray and he’s broken both radius and ulna and one of the fractures is going into the growth plate. I won’t know the full extent until we see the fracture clinic in 24 hours however we were sent home in a plaster cast and sling and I’ve kept him comfortable with calpol alternating nurofen. My plan is to go into school tomorrow asking for the accident book copy but I want to see it and not have it done and back dated. I will tell them he won’t be in for the next couple of days until I know more but I’m not disclosing the damage he’s done until I know for definite.

I am furious. He very clearly to me had broken his arm the moment I seen him. She played it down to me on the phone and his arm had been manipulated and it should not have been. They did not contact me fast enough and no accident from was given. Does anyone have advice? I want to complain because I’m just so unhappy about the handling and I don’t want it to happen again but I want the first aid training to be looked into also. My poor boy.

A broken arm is not a medical emergency. You might think it is but your DD was not at imminent risk of death from her broken arm.

A school that doesn't employ a full time nurse? Which I imagine is most of them these days.

A broken arm (unless the bone is sticking out of the skin as a rather dramatic poster has been asking) is not an emergency and will not be treated as an emergency at A&E.

The amount of time added waiting for a parent to come and collect is going to make little difference to the time it takes for a broken arm to be diagnosed and treated in hospital.
Most primary school age parents are not several hours away during the school day.
They also aren't going to start using serious painkillers on a child without a parent's presence (a teacher or school nurse cannot consent to non emergency treatment for a child) so at best they'll get some gas and air if it's really terrible but mostly they'll be gritting their teeth until a parent arrives anyway..

https://www.sja.org.uk/get-advice/first-aid-advice/bones-and-muscle-injuries/broken-bones-and-fractures/

try doing some research ffs - a broken arm can certainly be a medical emergency - stop being so blinkered. Its basic first aid

Oh ffs how is first aid supposed to determine a fracture??? You can only know for certain if something is fractured by an X-ray. Unless the first aiders have X-ray vision then you are talking nonsense!
Schools don’t have X-ray machines and neither are they doctors. They teach, their qualifications are in teaching not the NHS! And by the sounds of it you have no experience of working in the NHS. Even GPs tell patients to go to A&E if they’ve had a fall because even they can’t tell if it’s broken and so will need to go to hospital for an X-ray.

You might as well say you would have known straight away it was a fracture….just because….your workplace has several first aiders! 🙄

What would you have done differently then?

I feel like you need to be clearer with what exactly you’re angry about cause it’s not clear.

Are you disputing that this was an accidental injury? Has your son said it was not due to a fall?

What time did the incident actually happen? What time was he taken to hospital?
Has any medical professional said that the delay in between has caused a serious impact to his recovery?

These are the sorts of things you need to pin down before raging.

Depends on the fracture. One that is potentially limb threatening if its displaced is a medical emergency, as i said up thread, my son was seen assessed xrayed sedated manipulated and in plaster within 30 mins of arriving in A&E for a radius/ulna fracture, in theatre 6 hours later, and he was sat laughing with the teacher when i arrived at the school. Not all fractures are left sat in a waiting room for hours.

If you’re okay with using up an emergency ambulance for a broken bone then that’s fine but it certainly would never be me because I’m responsible citizen. Have a great day.

But they called the parent straightaway so he could be seen quickly??

That’s great and that’s exactly what should happen but calling an emergency ambulance is unnecessary when the child is ambulant and conscious which was the case of the poster I was responding to.

They dont have to determine a fracture, just have enough knowledge and training to identify a suspected fracture and escalate appropriately in a timely manner. The first aider isnt necessarily to blame here, if under trained that could be the reason, but the training of the first aider definitely needs addressing, as they said the child was fine just some grazes and that he was disproportionately upset.

Right. I’m wondering what shit schools everyone has their kids at. Ours had trained first aider and a nurse. Never to my knowledge was a broken bone ever missed or an accident report failed to be issued. Accident book is a legal requirement. That’s just basic.

if you have children I would suggest you do some basic research into compound fractures and what to do if they happen. Hopefully your nearest and dearest never need you to advocate for them in an emergency situation

Yep.

absolutely, an ambulance in this situation was not needed, but if the accident had happened at lunch time play, and the call to the parent was at home time, thats not good enough. and the fact the first aider assessed the child as being fine.

Theres a middle ground here, where the school did fail the child, probably based on lack of training, but it doesnt warrant the ambulances and official levels of complaining. A simple conversation to gather facts and encourage the school to look at their first aiders levels of training should happen.

They could have not called a broken arm a graze?

Again, ambulances are extremely unlikely to come out for such an injury, and as PPs have posted, many parents don't realise their DC have broken bones until an x-ray. It's still worth raising with the school but with some understanding, not in anger and not in this dramatic 'serious injury', 'safeguarding failure' way.

I haven’t told my son not to pick hairy caterpillars off the ground and eat them - this doesn’t mean I’ve told him that yes, he should do this.

It just means we haven’t (yet) had a conversation about this.

My point is that for all those posters bleating about how the school should’ve given the OP medical advice, the school DIDN’T say, “No, no, don’t get it xrayed at hospital, he doesn’t need to go there”. They didn’t mention hospital (or not), presumably because they’re not told to give medical advice.

Nonsense. You are using the word "manoeuvred" and OP wrongly used the word "manipulated" when that is a medical term with a specific meaning (trying to get a broken or dislocated bone back into the correct position). I assume the school staff were merely trying to ascertain if he could move his arm. I have seen many children injured at school and it is not always clear at all, for some time, how severe the injury is. Some children get very upset over minor bangs and scrapes and say at first that they can’t move that limb, while others carry on their day seemingly unconcerned about injuries that later turn out to be serious. A teacher once sent a child to me in the middle of the day because he had told her calmly several times his arm was hurting and was writing very slowly. It turned out eventually that he had broken his arm and dislocated his collar-bone the previous evening, falling off his bike, but his parents had not thought it was any more than a bump.

School staff have first aid training but are not doctors. Unless it’s an emergency they cannot take a child to hospital without parents' permission. For some strange reason you think they shouldn’t have taken him out to his mother, even though that surely speeded up the process of getting him to hospital.

They did the right thing in contacting OP as soon as it became clear to them that the injury was probably not a minor one. Their first priority was rightly the care of the child, not the filling in of an accident report.

@mummytorands I hope your son has a speedy recovery and I understand your upset, but you are trying to blame people who did what they thought was best. (And please don’t use the word "manipulation" when you are telling people about it because that has a different meaning, medically.) However, if you are still unhappy your school will have a complaints policy on its website, telling you the steps you should take. It will probably tell you to contact the headteacher in the first instance and then, if you are unhappy with their response, write to the Chair of Governors.

Has OP said it happened at lunchtime? I'd have thought it was at playtime in the afternoon.

We dont know that, we dont know the time elapsed, the child could have injured his arm at lunch time play, as most children beyond early years do not have an afternoon playtime.

The OP and lots of responses on here explain why nobody wants to work in schools or healthcare and why so many kids are growing up afraid of their own shadow and unable to cope with anything remotely stressful....

Yes because it's vital a parent be as frightened and distraught as possible when coming in to collect a child. 😒

No, she means they didn't tell her not to take him to hospital. They did not provide advice about taking to hospital, one way, or the other.

According to the OP anyway.