Health Care Policy – Communicable Diseases

Purpose of document

Parachutes Childcare Ltd, Little Haven Nursery seeks to ensure the health and well-being of all children and adults in our nursery.  We have a duty of care to all children and adults in the nursery and we will follow all our polices in order to ensure we are a safe space for all.  The polices in place are designed to protect all users of the nursery and not to add any unnecessary disruption to people working lives.  Children and adults of the nursery who are unwell MUST remain at home, as this is the best place for them to rest and aids a faster recovery. 

Please do not bring children who are unwell into the nursery as they will be sent home upon arrival. We do reserve the right to refuse children into nursery if it is believed they have an illness that is contagious and will have an impact on the well-being of the rest of the children and staff.  This includes Children that have had Calpol before entering the premises as this could mask symptoms of an illness or infectious diseases.

Content of Policy

In this policy, it is our aim to minimise the spread of any communicable diseases and to ensure the wellbeing of all children within our nursery.  No adult or child known to be suffering from a communicable disease or considered too unwell to participate in normal activities shall be admitted to the nursery. Children should remain home and be cared for by their responsible parent or carer. Our staffing levels are in place to care for well children only and not to care for children who are unwell.  Children should remain home until they are fully well, and their symptoms have resolved, and they have returned to their normal activities. Such as eating, drinking, sleeping, and playing.  We have a duty of care to all children who attend our nursery under this policy and our Child Protection/Safeguarding policy.   

If a child is exposed to or contracts a communicable disease, it will be our policy to contact the parents verbally via telephone and in most cases in writing via Iconnect, likewise we appreciate the parents/carers co-operation with staff at the nursery and advise us if their child comes down with or is exposed to an infectious disease, attends hospital for an illness etc, so that the appropriate steps can be taken to notify others, as necessary and so that we can ensure measures are taken at the nursery to limit any further spread.  Parents/carers are required to inform the nursery where they can be reached in the event of an accident/sudden illness. When parents are co-parenting or parallel parenting, both parents will be called simultaneously, However, on occasions it may be impossible to contact a parent/carer in an emergency, we will make every effort to contact the next named person and so on until we have made contact, failing this, parents/carers are required to provide the Manager with signed permission for the setting to act in their absence.

Procedures

Exclusion periods - The following conditions may apply should an adult or child have any of the following illnesses outlined in the table below.  Please note that this list is not exhaustive and individual illnesses will require shorter or longer exclusions depending on the individual case.  It includes some common examples of illnesses but other illnesses with exclusion periods will also apply.

Staff are encouraged to ensure they have appropriate immunisations for the job role they undertake, in some cases PCCL will arrange immunisation if necessary as are parents encouraged to ensure all children immunisations are up to date.  All Staff undertake a ‘Health Declaration’ prior to employment, this includes up to date immunisations information.  All staff if unsure will be asked to check with their GP regarding immunisation status. Staff who are aged between 16-25 will be advised to check they have had two doses of MMR.   All children have a completed registration form on entry that ensures parents share any medical needs of the children attending the nursery.  All staff are encouraged to undertake the COVID vaccination program if and when available.  Any child with COVID 19/Respiratory symptoms will be excluded from the nursery until they are well, in line with our COVID policy.

All children who vomits or suffers from diarrhoea in nursery will be excluded for 48 hrs after their last loose or vomit episode.  This must be adhered to and we ask for your support in ensuring this happens to avoid an outbreak.  Usually we will exclude after 2 loose nappies and 1 episode of vomiting. There will be some exceptions for children however, we will have been notified of these exceptions on the children’s registration forms. We reserve the right to exclude any child we feel is too unwell to be in nursery for any reason. We also reserve the right to request that medical attention for children is sought if we believe it is necessary.

Changes to the Policy In the Event of an Outbreak

Children’s absences and illnesses are monitored by staff to look for any patterns and links to communicable illnesses spreading at nursery.  If we see a pattern of absence or illness that we believe is an outbreak, we will firstly attempt to reduce the spread of infection internally by following policies and procedures. However, this can only be achieved with parents support and we will either ask for treatment, medical examination and/or exclude certain individual/groups of children.  If the spread of a communicable disease continues we will seek advice from Public Health Wales and either report an outbreak or gain support in how we can reduce the spread of infection.  If Public Health Wales deem we have an outbreak we will comply with all guidance given.  We will also implement stricter measures in line with advice.  We will follow these measures and guidance’s  with no exceptions at all and we ask that you support us all in breaking the cycle and spread of infection by collecting children as requested as quickly as possible.