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Conjunctivitis


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Officially we don't exclude for conjunctivitis but we do advise that children don't come in if they have yellow 'gunk' in the eyes, particularly in our baby room where it is impossible to stop them rubbing their eyes. We've had lots of conjunctivitis in the past couple of weeks and it does make me wonder why there is no exclusion as it is sooo infectious!

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We have it as once no discharge, however i was aware of the change in ruling that we should not exclude but naughty me didn't change it when I put new sign up so decided to hide my head and pretend, we too have had a child who required hospital treatment for a few days because of it.

I will continue to hide ?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Our policy states that a child must be collected with suspected conjunctivitis and, if it is confirmed, treatment needs to be given at home for at least 24 hours before coming back. We also do not administer eye drops. I updated this policy from no exclusion when conjunctivitis swept through the baby room infecting almost all of them. It is not fair - having had it myself, I know how painful it is. It must be terrible for a baby

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Sorry, but to exclude on any level is not what guidance states. We have just received an e-mail from the Public Health Department at our County Council and this is part of what was in the e-mail:

 

“We would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the current national guidance from Public Health England is that children with conjunctivitis should NOT be kept away from school, nursery or childminders.

 

Conjunctivitis resolves by itself in 1-2 weeks in most people. Antibiotic eye drops make little difference to the speed of recovery from conjunctivitis in most people and there is no evidence that receivingantibiotic eye drops reduces the risk of passing the infection on to others.

 

We have also written to local GP surgeries to remind them of the Public Health England guidance.

 

We would like to invite you to review your own childcare facility’s guidance on conjunctivitis to ensure it is in line with current national expert evidence and guidance.”

 

Further information:

Public Health England. Guidance on infection control in schools and other childcare settings. 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/353953/Guidance_on_infection_control_in_schools_11_Sept.pdf

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Um right...so the person writing that would be happy sat next to a colleague for 1-2 wks with conjunctivitis whilst they handle the same stapler, hole punch, phone .....you'd never get any work done as you'd be forever washing your hands lol. And they are only 'inviting' you to review your guidance, I'm not convinced about the drops making little difference either, they seem to make a huge difference really quickly.

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conjunctivitis is a painful and easily transferable infection (viral and bacterial types) It can effect your eyesight and make things quite blurry....i'm just wondering if an accident happened whether this local council would be prepared to accept liability for cross infection or accident. Most of us are private companies and i think if we feel uncomfortable with the 'guidelines' then our policies should be able to reflect that. If your consumers are happy with your decisions then there should be no problems.

We have certainly had children with already existing eye conditions who would have been in danger if conjunctivitis was contracted

.....would you still not exclude in these cases?

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I think I might send out the letter to parents and ask them if they are happy with a child attending Pre-school with conjunctivitis and go with the majority. I think the only ones that would say 'yes' would be the parent of the child with it!

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We had a couple of cases of this last week. One Mum said that the doctor said her child did not need to be kept away from pre-school. I always have and always will require children to be kept away for a day while the eye drops start to work and the discharge has at least gone crusty. I do not care what the public health says, maybe the person writing that guidance has not experienced two, three and four year olds and how and where they wipe bodily fluids!!

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I tell parents that public health England States that children do not need to kept at home but my experience shows that young children do find conjunctivitis painful and sometimes distressing and actually when a child is not well they just want mummy. Most parents accept this and stay away.

But I do understand that there are reasons when parents do need to send their child to nursery even when they aren't well.

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