Flipping D and V - and 48 hour rule. Questions about how your school manage it.

[youarenotkiddingme]

I work in a SS for slid and pmld.

So our students often need full support with personal hygiene or those who are independent aren't always totally as clean as they could be. But probably no less so than their peers of the same age

Some of our students are very medically vulnerable and some take medication such as laxatives daily. There's also probably a higher number of students who take antibiotics due to infection because of their needs.

Now here's the question.

In your MS schools if a child has D how much does it need to be to send a child home? Will you ring parents and say they need to collect children and tell them 48 hours?

Do they have to have other symptoms alongside such as not eating, fever, lowered levels of activity?

We are finding SMT are increasingly refusing to send children home with D (and V in some cases). They say it's SS and rules are different to MS because of medication etc. But 5/6 of the last times this has happened have been children who are not medically unwell as part of their e not on medication for their bowels and are not taking AB at the time (they state it could be side effect of that).

Our school was closed for deep clean recently due to d and v. Smt didn't agree it was necessary.

But we are simply told they cannot ring parents and cannot tell them to collect their child and cannot insist they have 48 off. "Because we aren't MS"

Surely this is totally incorrect? And if it is - what can we do about it?

Dh is a teacher in my dd's school. She has a medical condition & takes medication which can occasionally cause vomiting & fainting She is only sent home if she does not feel well enough to continue the day.

I will check with dh but I doubt if a student would be sent home/kept away if diarrhoea was due to side effects of medication etc.

But that's what I'm saying. In 5/6 of the recent cases the students were not in the catagory of student presentation they are describing as a reason they can't be sent home.

This is illness. D, laying head on desk and lethargic, not eating lunch and pale face.

But yet, because we aren't a MS school - apparently we can't send them home or enforce the 48 hour rule.

Last year we had a student sent in daily with temp of 39° for 2.5 weeks who slept the whole time they were at school. Again - not a child with any medical needs. But we were told - yes, you are right, it's probably flu. But we can't send him home because the family also have it and are all in bed and who will look after him. A staff member then caught flu and was off for a month - they weren't covered.

i work in a pmld school. If there was a clear reason such as side effect of meds we would t send home but if it's a d and v bug they should be straight home and off till 48 hours after last episode. We have driven kids home sometimes if parents can't collect but public health states this is what all schools should do. Particularly in a pmld environment where some childrens complex needs could mean they would be really poorly if they caught a highly infectious bug going round plus impact on staff if they catch it etc

We send him straight away for vomiting - unless a medical condition in which they vomit but can carry on/it's not catchable.
Diarrhoea generally Send home.

We don't use 23/48hr rule (secondary MS). If they feel well enough they can come back in. We don't have any particular issues with bugs spreading fast

I have just googled PHE guidance on 48hr rules 😷

Yes we've taken home before too.

But this is new stance they are taking. It makes no sense.

Staff d and v seems to be on increase and we get told it's referral to OH if we have 7 days off.

But collectively we argue we are off because we keep catching severe cold and d and v as pupils remain in school ill.

I work at a ss with most children on various cocktails of medications. If they mention d and look/feel unwell we phone and get them collected and whoever collects them is told the 48hr rule.
I am SLT and can not imagine keeping a child in school when they are not well. Yes some medications have side effects and that would be taken into account but if we believe they are unwell thenhime they go.

If we are aware that a child is on medication which can cause D and there were no other signs of illness we would delay sending them home otherwise all children are sent home immediately.