Question for teachers/youth workers – first aid procedures

What’s wrong with my comment? If a school is going to be in loco parentis then they should act like it and take the kid to hospital. School nurse or first aider should have permission to use their car or a minibus or whatever.

What’s wrong with my comment?

What was wrong with your comment was the inference, however tongue in cheek it was implied. “you broke them”. Not “broke their arm whilst at school” or “broke their arm whilst taking part in an activity”. There is a language of blame/guilt pervading so much of what we do; especially dealing with young people.

As it happens, what you think should happen mirrors closely with mine. I’ve just sadly been around the block long enough to know why what should happen often can’t and the (often sad and depressing) reasons why (as outlined by LMP above).

I must admit to never reading the “what do you do for living” / “what small animals have you personally stuffed” threads

Neither do I, but it takes a certain level of disinterest in other people to be totally unaware of what certain people on here do for a living.

FWIW we had an ambulance turn up at our local primary last week for a kid who’d fainted. I didn’t notice them being upset at being called.

Actually, a CRB check just shows you have never been caught….

If a school is going to be in loco parentis then they should act like it and take the kid to hospital. School nurse or first aider should have permission to use their car or a minibus or whatever.

I agree with you on that point. That would be the common sense approach. But because of a) instances of abuse that have happened when adults in positions of trust have an opportunity to be alone with a child and b) the fear parents and carers have (and can instil in their children) of a) happening, common sense is no longer allowed to prevail.

A lot of parents only want the school to be in loco parentis as long as the school don’t do anything the parents disagree with, like give their snowflake a detention, confiscate their mobile phone, or give them a paracetamol when they break their arm. The schools and professionals unfortunately can’t do right for doing wrong with some people.

A lot of parents only want the school to be in loco parentis as long as the school don’t do anything the parents disagree with, like give their snowflake a detention, confiscate their mobile phone, or give them a paracetamol when they break their arm. The schools and professionals unfortunately can’t do right for doing wrong with some people.

Flippin bob on!

Convert, my comments where made to the O/P, the one who wanted some advice for his freind and child, we all have the ability to sue a company,school hospital etc, if the care and support they provide falls below the standards required,asking for the various risk assesments and training of the staff all legal obtainable documents unde the FOI, will perhaps get the managenment of the school to re think their present system or even to have one.

The kid was left at the school and under their supervision, so they have a duty of care to ensuree he is looked after,in a safe and secure environmnet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-24637366

seems as if schools now do have a non delegable duty of care, so cant delaegate the duty of care to others for children who are in their care.

The kid was left at the school and under their supervision, so they have a duty of care to ensuree he is looked after,in a safe and secure environmnet.

And if the training and risk assessments are all in order, what do you do then? Maybe accept that accidents do happen, or look for someone else to sue?

seems as if schools now do have a non delegable duty of care, so cant delaegate the duty of care to others for children who are in their care.

Awesome – well done, Law. “When the case was dealt with in the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Tomlinson said the imposition of a non-delegable duty of care on the council could have a chilling effect on the willingness of education authorities to provide valuable experiences for their pupils. ” Let’s not forget, the Supreme Court had to change the law for the appeal to be succesful.

So, you take all those swimming lessons, school trips, any kind of playground equipment and I daresay even PE kit, and you can just throw it all away, because no-one’s going to dare use it any more. Fantastic.

So, you take all those swimming lessons, school trips, any kind of playground equipment and I daresay even PE kit, and you can just throw it all away, because no-one’s going to dare use it any more.

I’ve got a mate who is a technician in a tech studies department – they’ve got tonnes and tonnes of materials and equipment they can’t use any more because kids aren’t allowed to make anything any more.

– Member

The kid was left at the school and under their supervision, so they have a duty of care to ensuree he is looked after,in a safe and secure environmnet.

And if the training and risk assessments are all in order, what do you do then? Maybe accept that accidents do happen, or look for someone else to sue?

but thats why you ask questions and threaten to sue, to see if they have been adhered with……….

but thats why you ask questions and threaten to sue, to see if they have been adhered with……….

I would amend this sentence to

That’s why you ask questions to see if the rules and regulations have been adhered to.

If it becomes apparent that they have not been, you may then threaten to sue.

Too many people threaten litigation as a first response to anything going wrong. Accident simply aren’t allowed to happen any more – it has to be someone’s fault.

A school near me was sued a few years back because the school gave a child a detention, and the child was attacked on the way home from said detention. Parents tried to argue it was the school’s fault. Didn’t get anywhere, because the court ruled the parents are responsible for the child’s safety once off school property, and they had allowed the child to walk home in the dark. Parents had also signed the detention slip so they knew of and agreed to said detention. Didn’t stop them trying to sue.

So just how badly does a child need to be hurt for that school to dial 999?

And why don’t they trust the ambo crew?

And lets not forget your ‘advice’ to the OP was ……

That should make then stand up and be counted,also mention you may be pursuing a claim for a family holiday, compenstation for lack of care by the staff concerned.

As if making demands for money was either going make the girl in question feel better, or cover potential loss of earnings for the little girl. At least you had the good grace to strike through the real reason most folk sue in this sort of senario.

Don’t get me wrong – asking to see (or better still, see and be talked through) the policies the school have and discuss the reasoning behind their decision making is a good thing for both parties and might bring up errors of judgement that can be learnt from. But threatening to sue for monetary compensation as a first port of call is in my opinion indicative of a thoroughly naused up world.

Its not threatening, but a legal possibility and a right to be able to claim compensation for others faults or failures in the duty of care expected.

Perhaps advising the school you will be pursuing legal action through a solicitor for distress caused may be better wording.

There has been some nonsense spouted here.

Are there really parents who are too busy/disinterested/important to attend hospital if their child requires assessment/treatment? As for “you broke them, you fix them”, really? As a parent you want no input in the recovery of your child?

I have sat holding the hand of a very scared 12 year-old girl, strapped to a backboard, getting an x-ray of her spine. I took the responsibility of asking her if she thought there may be a chance that she was pregnant. Not a question that most 12 y-o girls are comfortable with, despite what you read in the media, and to have been asked it by a total stranger would have added further distress. That was a case where Mum was a long way away and totally unable to attend.

If an accident happens in school, my working assumption is that the parent wants to be involved. If the child is severely injured, 999 all the way, but a less severe, stable injury does not warrant an ambulance, and in my experience, without exception, parents are happy to collect their child from the school. “Meet us at the Hospital.” will induce panic in most Mums and Dads. Picking the child up from the school also freaks the kid out less too. Always a child would be made comfortable and fully supervised whilst waiting for the family.

There is also an opportunity for a conversation, maybe brief, but important nevertheless, about the circumstances of the incident, and any steps the school is taking, as well as the early ability to address any concerns or expectations from the parent.

I am a PT Pupil Support in a secondary school. We would have called the parent to take the child to hospital as OP’s case. As mentioned above, staff cannot give consent for treatment – the parent is required to do this.

There is no need for consent of treatment in emergency situations the medical professional makes the judgement.

Child Protection: Only one Teacher would be needed there is no need for 2.

Call from remote caller: Makes no odds if they know the location of the incident they’re a regular occurrence.

I can’t see why a School would think it was Ok to leave a child with a broken arm until a parent could get to them. I’ve been called to all sorts at schools over the years sometimes the parents are there, other time they’ve been travelling to hospital to meet us, they’ve always had a teacher travel with them.

People will sue schools for all sorts of things, I’ve been in court as a witness in one case. They didnt get any money thougb the little liars despite the nasty injury.

WTF? You need two adults to take a kid with a suspected broken arm to hospital??? What’s the point of the CRB / DBS check, then?

as stated above protects the staff, TBH don’t see it as appropriate for school staff to be ferrying sick kids about.

with parents an hour plus away the school should have rung the ambulance service and sent a teacher with the kid, however they probably didn’t want to stump up for the taxi back hence a kid waiting for a parent to show up

If an accident happens in school, my working assumption is that the parent wants to be involved. If the child is severely injured, 999 all the way, but a less severe, stable injury does not warrant an ambulance, and in my experience, without exception, parents are happy to collect their child from the school. “Meet us at the Hospital.” will induce panic in most Mums and Dads. Picking the child up from the school also freaks the kid out less too. Always a child would be made comfortable and fully supervised whilst waiting for the family

at an hour plus away the school should have offered to call the ambulance service and if not the parent pushed for it, if I hadn’t talked to the first aider and wasn’t happy and it was my child I would have called the ambulance service myself it would be an hour before I get to the school never mind get the kid to a hospital

Its not threatening, but a legal possibility and a right to be able to claim compensation for others faults or failures in the duty of care expected.

Are we allowed to take this a step further and allow the school to counter-sue, vecause they entrusted the care of a child to a body without taking sufficient care to ensure that the school was adequately risk-assessed before sending their child there?

As for “you broke them, you fix them”, really? As a parent you want no input in the recovery of your child?

I really should stop making jokes about what is obviously such a serious matter for everyone. If this happened to my daughter, I’d want someone to give me a call and if I couldn’t be there ASAP get her to hospital. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable point of view, though I understand in the current climate with hysteria over paedophilia this could cause problems to the school so they should call an ambulance if they can’t do it themselves.

You don’t leave a chid sitting about with a broken arm. That’s not very clever.

In all fairness, maybe I’ve missed someone saying otherwise, but as I understood it, the school weren’t even sure if it was broken – obviously, if there was bone poking out, blood spraying around and a child screaming in pain, that would be different, but it’s definitely a possibility for the child just to be white-faced and sniffling. Mrs Pondo broke her wrist as a child and when she went to her mum (who is a lovely lady and dutiful parent), she just vigourously rubbed it better, to her endless horror and embarrassment. So it might not have been that blatantly clear whether it was an injury worth an emergency call or not.

Big difference between breaking a wrist and breaking an arm, pondo – I should know as it took me 18 months to discover I’d broken my wrist (and both the medical professionals I spoke to before the x-ray reckoned I hadn’t). Try that with a broken arm!

Big difference between breaking a wrist and breaking an arm, pondo

To be fair – it depends. A kid I work with broke his arm the half term just gone. In the intervening 36hrs between the accident (faffing around with a skateboard) and diagnosis he assumed ‘he’d knocked it a bit’, played a knockabout game of football and took part in a swimming competition! His was a fine hairline fracture (and by nature he is dumb as ****/ hard as nails) but does go show the range of pain that encompasses the generic ‘broken arm’. We have no way of assessing the 2nd hand info from the op as to how this girl presented to the school.

Yes, which was my point with the story about when I broke my arm.

It’s understandable that perhaps they didn’t know it was broken, because it’s possible to not know. But once it was known that it was broken, then delaying was not sensible.

But once it was known that it was broken, then delaying was not sensible.

To be honest, I’ve not been in many schools with their own x-ray machine 😉

For anyone still interested, last night I ran this by a mate who is on the county council H&S team – though not involved with this particular academy as it is outside the council’s control.

His view was that the school had taken the worst option – their priority should have been to ensure proper medical attention asap, once they knew that the parents were an hour away, they should have taken the kid to the hospital, which was only 10 minutes away. Two teachers in the car, one to drive, one to keep an eye on the kid, both ensuring no allegations could be made 🙄

Medical consent is technically the doctors problem, rather than the schools, but as the school has responsibility for the children in it’s care, unless the parents have given specific instructions to the contrary, a teacher can give consent in the parents absence if it is not appropriate to wait for the parents to arrive.

Now you lot can tell him he is wrong!

He’s wrong if the didnt have sufficient staffing.

Mentioned this at school today. Universal response was 999 as is school policy.
Reasons were quicker expertise and arse covering.
Thee are plenty of parents out there who will not leave work for a hospitalised kid. Met plenty of them. 👿

Two teachers in the car, one to drive, one to keep an eye on the kid, both ensuring no allegations could be made

Would they have been insured in the event of an accident?
2 teachers? Obviously depends on how many staff the school has? Then there is the “safety” of the children these 2 staff members have left behind! Might only be 10mins to A&E but could be hrs before staff return to school. I was away from work for over 2hrs on one of my works incident/ adventures. Busy place A&E on a weekend evening……..
Would one of them have been a first aider in the event of complications?
My work use the taxi option with a first aider in event of minor incidents such as this. 999 if anything more serious.