The mother of a seven-year-old girl who fell over and broke her arm while at a holiday play scheme has complained after staff failed to treat her injured daughter. The girl was playing at the council-run ‘Boredom Busters’ holiday club, where staff judged her well enough to go on with the rest of the day’s activities – only to discover later that she had fractured a bone.

The girl’s mother described how she had arrived to collect her daughter and was asked to sign an accident report which said the child’s injury had been treated with a ‘wet tissue’. When her daughter complained that she had been in pain throughout the afternoon’s activities, she was taken to hospital where doctors identified a fracture, putting the six-year-old’s arm in a plaster cast.

Staff responsible

Play scheme staff have been blamed for not dealing with the accident properly, though Bournemouth Council’s department spokesperson stressed that “all the necessary checks and procedures” had been carried out (Daily Echo, 2009). The mother explained that encouraging her daughter to move her arm by continuing with the activities put her at risk of further injury.

The council play scheme has not been without controversy in the past, as two students were investigated last June for working with children without being adequately checked by the Criminal Records Bureau. Only the previous month, another six-year-old girl had to receive hospital treatment after slipping into a pool during supervised Boredom Busters swimming sessions.