Could I be sacked over this?

[Sweetiexx]

could i be sacked for this?
I work as a cook manager in a school, a child who has an allergy was given a wrong dessert by my kitchen assistant. The child is ok had no reaction.

the school also had another incident regarding this child from the classroom. But the head teacher has said they are going to do an investigation with the governors.

we have had no new information from the school regarding allergies or pictures of the children.
all we had was a teacher come up and pointed this child out. My staff member couldn’t remember the child.
no as the manager could I be sacked because of this?

many thanks

If you are the cook manager have you overall responsibility for the kitchen and all food coming from it?

If yes, then I'm very surprised that you didn't insist on abetter system being in place to cover allergies, associated risks and impacted children.

Surely, this should gave been a key priority.

If you are the cook manager have you overall responsibility for the kitchen and all food coming from it?

If yes, then I'm very surprised that you didn't insist on abetter system being in place to cover allergies, associated risks and impacted children.

Surely, this should gave been a key priority.

Have you been in a manager role before, are you in charge of the kitchen and meals. Do you attend staff or management meetings where this should have been discussed. If you knew there were risks with the school not providing information and training maybe you could have refused to continue working, were your concerns raised formally, to the Head, Governors and pta. Who trained up the kitchen assistant, have they received allergy training,

I understand as a manager it’s my ultimate responsibility.
its all done verbally regarding everything in the school.
the staff member who gave it to her said she completely forgot. That’s what I am up
against. She has had all the training.
this is why I am saying even tho every other part of her meal was ok how can I be held responsible for someone forgetting??

yes the school needs to update it procedure properly it’s like the don’t care at all, and won’t allow us any reasonable systems to do like other schools do.
even the lunchtime supervisors don’t know who have allergies.
a teacher came to me and said oh I have another 3 with allergies in the class, which no one has ever told us about.

Ours are given wristbands in the morning with the lunch time meal that has been booked and any allergies etc to prevent this. It also determines where they position in the queue which with 800 kids in school is not easy.

Mine was still given a drink at break (not lunch) that caused a couple of days off though. So not completely foolproof but infinitely better than no system

You should be held responsible, because this is your fault. " But we have had nothing this term, even tho i have asked for it, school said was not ready." I'm sorry but someone who is ready to be a manager doesn't "ask" for something they NEED to keep people safe, they TELL the school that they cannot serve food without it. If it isn't provided you go to the office and you say "we need this, NOW to keep the kids safe". If the school are being really obtuse, you write a letter saying they need to provide you with a written disclaimer before you will serve food. Meanwhile consider whether management is really what you want to be doing. I mean I'm not saying the school isn't at all at fault, they clearly are. In my experience though, I've had maybe 12 managers and ALL the ones I've considered to be really good to bloody awesome, have been ones who will stick their necks out when everything is going shitty, and fight for what their team needs. I'm sorry for you, because maybe you aren't the fighty type, (I'm not and I have never tried to be a manager because I wouldn't do a team justice.) but you can't just walk away from doing something essential in your job because it's being hard, if you do, then you are in the wrong job.

You can't be held responsible for her forgetting.

You could be held responsible for having a procedure that relies on kitchen staff recognising individual children on sight.

That's a recipe for disaster.

I suppose it depends who has charge over those systems. I would've thought it would be the kitchen manager (and based on my detailed conversation with the kitchen manager at our school when DD started, that's who it is at our school) but I don't work in a school.

This is the thing how can I be held responsible for someone forgetting???
the whole remembering a child by sight is hard and I means tough when she school wouldn’t allow any pictures on a wall so you can check it.

OK, so clearly the school needs to up its game, but what have you done to highlight the problems? As manager, with ultimate responsibility as you say, you have identified previously that the systems are inadequate. So what have you been doing to address that? You can't just shrug your shoulders and say that it's everyone else's fault. As the manager, it was on you to fix the issues.

Who is in charge of the kitchen's processes though? Because that's the issue here.

I’d say the person who forgot should be fired. But I’d not rely on one person who a forgets and b can’t remember what a child looks like when clearly being introduced for an important reason. Sounds like she just didn’t care.

so you need to all recognise the child, you need to take notes on the allergies, and you need to make sure you re enforce it, I’d move to disciplinary for you and retraining,

Because it's your responsibility as a manager to ensure there are other systems in place. If you don't feel the school are taking your suggestions on board, then you refuse to serve food. You don't continue putting children's lives at risk.

The assistant will be called to explain what happened too, it's easy to forget if there's no safety system in place and hundreds of meals to serve, how old was the child involved. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but as a manager you insist there is a safe system in place, you ask each term about specific children, set up a system, how can the school refuse, if they do then you report them to ofstead, and children's social services, if nothing changes there will be a serious incident.

You are not responsible for the member of staff forgetting.

You are responsible for not having had a more robust procedure in place in the first instance that didn't rely on the staff remembering.

If you were not allowed to implement the measures that you wanted, is there clear evidence of this and of the way in which you set out any risks arising from this decision?

Because as a manager you should have realised how poor this method of remembering by sight is and done something to cover you/your team’s back in advance. Even if you sent an email to the teacher or the head saying “it is difficult for your staff to remember a child’s face and it is unreliable, what else can be done” - you’d have covered yourself.

You could have even took the initiative yourself. It takes seconds to write down someone’s name and check their name before giving them food for example. You could have asked for the child to wear a name badge, lanyard or some other indicator to ensure that they aren’t given food they’re allergic too. You can’t play around with allergies. As a manager you’re seen to be held to higher expectations as your member of staff, so you need to protect yourself by showing what support you offered your direct report, what training you provided, the guidance you followed etc.

They will struggle to sack you on the basis that all you have had is a finger point.

Push back.

At my primary school children with allergens are known because they wear a band denoting them and this can be matched to a gallery of pictures with their specific allergen which is on the wall of the kitchen.

You should have an SLT who is the medical lead, this falls squarely in there accountability to manage an inform.

If you think relying on "someone remembering" is an ok way of making sure a child doesn't die you honestly need the sack. When someone is doing something that they CAN'T forget to do, you as a manager need to make sure that they CAN'T forget to do it. The school sound crappy, but honestly this is your area so get a system in place NOW that makes sure it doesn't happen again.

Relying on kitchen staff recognising a child is a recipe for disaster. I'm particularly bad at recognising people even in small groups 100s of children, no chance. And what if they have a drastic hair cut or start wearing glasses, etc. The system needs to be much more positive, I don't know how old the children are, but something like a coloured wrist band that alerts staff to a child with allergies and maybe a lanyard with details. Or the child saying I'm allergic to xyz when they are being served.

Human error is always a risk but where are all of your controls to reduce the risk of errors?

Where are the processes, signing sheet & double checks which would catch a human error?

If you are running a kitchen, this is basic food safety training.

This is the bottom line, OP.

Either you didn't recognise the risks, which would raise questions about your competence.

Or you did recognise the risks and you failed to take appropriate action, which would raise questions about your conduct.

Or you did recognise the risks but decided that it wasn't your responsibility as a manager to do anything about them, which would raise questions about both your competence and your conduct.

If you want to hang onto your job, OP, you need to stop pointing fingers at others and accept accountability. And propose solutions that will ensure that this incident cannot ever be repeated.

I'm not saying this to be mean, I'm actually trying to help.

@Sweetiexx you might find this useful https://www.burges-salmon.com/-/media/files/publications/open-access/6_years_in_prison_for_reckless_disregard_of_nut_allergy.pdf

After every conversation with Head Teacher, Governor or anyone else who prevents you having robust procedures, follow up with an email. Along the lines of... "further to our conversation in the dinner hall at 11.35, where I requested to be allowed photographic id of DC with allergies. ... can you please confirm that DC with allergies are not to be identified in this manner and suggest an efficient alternative"

Are you employed by the school or a catering company?

As a mother of a nut-allergic child I’m horrified that a school setting in this day and age could play fast and loose with children’s lives like this.

OP, you seem more concerned about your job than you do about that fact that a child had a very lucky escape on your watch. If they’d died, and HSE had found such a startling absence of procedures and protections, you’d be up on a manslaughter charge.

If school refuse to give you the information you need to keep children safe, you should refuse to serve food to ALL children until you have it. I’d also suggest you update your allergy training because you seem extremely blasé about the whole subject.

We are all horrified so I can only feel for you on how scary this must be, I’m also concerned the op seems to habe her sole concern as it’s not her fault or responsibility, rather than how do I stop this ever happening again.

speaks to the culture, no one cares.

It is your responsibility to ensure that no child is given any food they are allergic too. If you don't understand that, and what it eno, you are in the wrong job.

This is very scary to read! You need to be ensuring you have the proper procedures in place before children are being served food. Is there a paper trail of you raising concerns? Did you speak to anyone officially? Did you make
It clear that without a proper process for allergies, you cannot serve food? Have you had training on this subject?

It seems like an extremely haphazard arrangement that you haven't bothered to properly challenge until someone has gone wrong, and now you're just concerned that you don't get blamed for it.