Accident at school

MrsTinks

FYI - FAW is First Aid at Work qualification.
I've been FAW, AA 1 & 2 (Ambulance Aid) through St Johns and qualified to administer medical gasses and operate the AEDs (Automated External Defribulator (forgive spelling) and now all my certificates have lapsed which means I can't really do anything legally... Yet I still have that knowledge and push come shove I'd do everything within my ability to preserve life and promote recovery.
However... a broken arm would not class on my list of things to risk legal persecution for I'm afraid. Only if the ABCs are under threat would I put myself at risk.
My view on transporting the child is that the teachers certainly shouldn't have done so - they are NOT insured to transport the child to hospital for starters and it would have taken 2 teachers not one to transport him to hospital as one would have needed to pay attention to the child and the other to concentrate on driving. I've driven on blues and two's and I can promise you that it's incredibly distracting to have someone in pain in a vehicle you are driving and you increase the chances of being involved in a serious accident.
What I would have said should have happened is the arm should have been placed in a sling if possible - ie if the child would allow them to move his arm enough to place it in a sling - and then the parent contacted. The school can't reasonably tell if an arm is broken or not (ok open fractures and even some closed fractures are fairly obvious - but technically they should never say "you have broken your arm"... they CAN say "i suspect you have broken your arm" - yes it's bizarre but it's all about covering yourself... ).
My view is that the school acted entirely reasonably given the circumstances - there was from the description no immediate danger to life and the OP was only 15/20 minutes away. Only upon examination at hospital was the severity of the injury discovered - so even the OP didn't feel it was urgent enough to call an ambulance when she saw her son. If the injury was severe enough and obviously so then surely she would have called an ambulance herself when she arrived at the school? If it was so painful that he shouldn't have been moved without painkillers then waiting less than 9 minutes (and given proximity to hospital I'd say a few minutes is more likely) for an ambulance with gas and air to arrive would have been the obvious reaction surely?

As for teachers... I agree... damned if they do, damned if they don't... Not a job I'd want to do!

mazza111

Would be interesting to know how the meeting at school went, and ofc how the child is recovering.....

KellyWelly

To clarify - I didn't mean that teachers are the only ones who do get abused, I meant they are the only ones (afaik) who have no right to refuse services to their clients. For example, if I got hammered and slapped an A&E nurse, they could legally refuse to treat me. If I shouted and swore at somebody in the Job Centre, they would forceably remove me from the office.

What I was trying to say was, if a mother comes into the school shouting and calls me a See You Next Tuesday and tells me to stop sending letters to her asking for money and to send them to 'his useless farking father' instead, I have no grounds to remove her or refuse to educate her son or to ban her from the premises.

Maybe I should have highlighted or emphasised HAVE TO put up with it.

galvanizersbaby

KellyWelly wrote: »

To clarify - I didn't mean that teachers are the only ones who do get abused, I meant they are the only ones (afaik) who have no right to refuse services to their clients. For example, if I got hammered and slapped an A&E nurse, they could legally refuse to treat me. If I shouted and swore at somebody in the Job Centre, they would forceably remove me from the office.

What I was trying to say was, if a mother comes into the school shouting and calls me a See You Next Tuesday and tells me to stop sending letters to her asking for money and to send them to 'his useless farking father' instead, I have no grounds to remove her or refuse to educate her son or to ban her from the premises.

Maybe I should have highlighted or emphasised HAVE TO put up with it.

:eek:KellyWelly the school you teach at sounds like it has some really nice parents sending their offspring there - not!
I could never have been a teacher - I'm afraid my patience wouldn't extend to not asking an individual like this to leave the premises - I would probably be sacked on the spot!

Reading through the thread it doesn't look to me as though the school have acted inappropriately in this instance.
OP - I hope your son's arm is healing ok

Sirbendy

if we have an incident here, first aid take the initial heat and do an evaluation and treatment if it's nothing big..anything major, and they send for the meatwagon. I do agree that the compensation culture and H&S/other regs have gone insane of late..I'm not a teacher (IT support), but I have so many rules, regs, "you should not"s and so on that I should abide by it does my swede in.

Quite a lot of them I dismiss as "bloody idiocy", and take it on my own head. If we didn't do it sometimes, we'd never be able to do anything.

I used to take my OHs siblings home...someone did try to tell me off for it. I just referred them to mother/father in law, who told the school in no uncertain way to butt out. I also had a letter giving me full power to act as guardian if needed and apply order. Never needed that bit. Bless.

We have some lovely parents here..again, not. Threats are not unknown..raving is not unknown. Fair play to the staff that deal with it, they should be armed. Sometimes it feels like it.

We even have an ex-copper on staff for this..heh.

verityboo

Hi. I am sorry to hear of your sons injury

My wife has been a school PE for many years and is one of several first aiders. The children are not wrapped in cotton wool and so it is inevitable that accidents happen. It is normal practice to only call an ambulance if a condition is life threatening, that is what they are trained to do. If a parent can come straight away to collect the child, then that is usually best for the child. If no parent was available then alternatives would be looked at. As stated previously, there are the other children in the school to also consider

Although this is a new experience for you, the school may have seen it a few times before. As the husband of a teacher, I would ask anyone who complains to a school and the teachers in such circumstances to do so in a constructive and reasoned way. My wife has been on the receiving end of some truly awful comments (which were totally wrong and ignorent) but as a human being it is not nice to deal with

I do hope your son is well soon, verityboo

sabz_saver

I understand the each school has a different policy and are not medically trained, and ok a bocken arm may not be life threatning, but please remmember that the child is 5and underwent an operation. Therfore as well as the child being distressed, the child did require a operational procedure and in a situation like that I would like my five year old child to be seen by a paramedic whilst I made my way to the school. yes I understand every policy is different, but we are talking about a small 5 year old child but I am sorry to break the news that a broken arm requiring a operational procedure is SERIOUS and im sure the school should have seeked medical advise!! Please talk to your parent governor about how this situation was handled! If you took you child to school with a broken arm think about the implications....... but yet again its cool when the situation is the other way round. I dont think the school dealt with this situation properly.

I am a parent governor, and have a five year old child

verityboo

We have a 5 year old child and as stated above my wife is a teacher so we see it from both sides.

When an incident is not life threatening I would feel irresponsible to call a paramedic and in so doing deprive someone else who's life is in the balance. Unfortunately the resources of our health service are not infinite.

It sounds like the teachers followed what they are trained to do?

peachyprice

sabz_saver wrote: »

I a broken arm requiring a operational procedure is SERIOUS and im sure the school should have seeked medical advise!!

The school had no way in the world of knowing that the child would need an operation, or indded that the arm was even broken

sprogs

I hope the meeting with the school went well and that your son is recovering well.

As many people have said unfortunately accidents happen, particularly to boys - I have a son that can fall over whilst standing still! And children all react differently, I have seen a child scream and scream for what seemed an eternity when a wobbly tooth fell out because they found it distressing so it can be difficult to judge the severity of an injury purely on the reaction of a child.

That said the school obviously said to you when they called that they felt it needed checking by a doctor or at A&E, so I imagine that they suspected it could be broken but knowing that you were going to have to drive to get to the school would not want to cause you to panic and may have 'played it down' on the phone. I would say that this was the right thing to do and I agree with the majority that a broken arm does not require an ambulance. I am not sure what medication a paramedic would give a child in that situation anyway, maybe just gas and air?

It is unfortunate that the break required pinning and that is obviously traumatic for both your son and you to have to go through.

With regard to transport, the teacher/welfare assistant would probably not be insured to take the child to hospital even if they were it would require 2 staff members to go. As the child is only 5 years old there are also laws governing infant school class sizes which would mean that 'sharing' a class out amongst the rest of the school would not be possible if it is just an infant school as opposed to infant and juniors.

Another interesting point it that schools are not obliged to provide first aiders for the children, although they are recommended to have provision in place. They have to have first aid provision for their employees though!

sabz_saver, I believe the correct procedure would probably be for the OP to raise any concerns (if they have any) with the headteacher first, and then there will be a proper complaints procedure to be followed if necessary. A governing body should act in a corporate manner and not as individuals, a parent governor is not there to solely represent parents.