The Demise of the School Nurse!!!

Let's get this clear. There is no longer such a thing as the School Nurse although the authorities will tell you that there is. Tim thinks, or at least thought she was employed by the school for 30 hours. No such luck. Parents should soon be getting a leaflet strangely tilted Harlow fields School Nurse service, but she's not in school to give hands on care to the children, but rather to support the school staff. As we have suspected for some time now she is a community nurse who works mostly outside the school and pops in very briefly, most days (unless she's at college)

Now we're not complaining about that, although we're not very happy. What we are extremely concerned about is the DECEPTION and ILLUSION that parents have had, that there is a school nurse on the premises for 30 hours a week. Not such a problem if your child isn't generally sick, but what about parents of children who have seizures, asthma, or need regular monitoring medically. Teachers are instructed by their unions , under no circumstances to administer medication, after there were problems with aspirin . However this doesn't mean that some unsuspecting TA should do it either.

Last term, Bill Rammell MP and The Dept of Ed told the school to no longer use the then current parental consent form, however for six months now the school has been in limbo over the this, which means the children are in a very vulnerable position . So are any TA's who administer medication without the proper consent -they are extremely vulnerable LEGALLY.

Now lets be sensible about this. Tim, poor bloke will need to sort this out so everyone is covered legally. There have been some very narrow escapes in the past. Another ILLUSION propagated by B.T. was that First Aiders were Qualified to give medication. They weren't even trained by an accredited course,. We think the nurse trained then, although we also think she is not qualified to do so (anyone can correct this by e-mail) First Aiders are only trained to give first aid to Adults, the course for first aid to children is very specialised and nobody in the school is qualified to do this.

Be under no more illusions parents - when the children that died were ill in school the nurse was not on site

when children have seizures she is not on site (an ambulance has to be called and each time the child will have the trauma of being taken to hospital)

children have been medicated when the nurse was not on site- illegal

one particular medication can and probably has been overdosed, probably by someone well meaning but ignorant

I don't want to tell Tim what to do, he will have to, and should work it out for himself, but it seems obvious that parents with children with medical problems should urgently seek to write a health care plan, detailing who specifically might medicate/treat their child, and dealing with the subject of liability

All this problem has occurred because B.T. deliberately avoided telling parents that she was selling the services of the then School Nurse back to the PCT, as indeed she did with Speech therapy and various teaching services in preparation for Privatisation (which didn't happen) So Harlow fields children do not have the finest and fullest treatments and therapies available

As for the rest of school we'll continue to give Tim some breathing space, and update before Christmas

Note; my totally separate page accessed from the front page "The 10 WORST THINGS ABOUT B.T.", before we consign her to the literary dustbin