Nursery staff ‘roughly handled’ babies

ENFORCEMENT action has been ordered against a Birmingham nursery where staff were seen “roughly handling” babies during an inspection by Ofsted.

Staff in the baby room at Santos Day Nursery in Birmingham Road, Great Barr, also showed “a lack of compassion” and put children “at risk of injury” because of the way they picked up the infants, according to the damning inspection report.

The nursery’s owner Harpreet Kaur said she challenged the report and had submitted an appeal against the findings. She has also requested a re-inspection.

According to the Ofsted inspectors, staff in the baby room “wiped children’s noses with force” and then failed to comfort them when they toppled over as a result.

“Staff lift children by the tops of their arms (to move them)... their rough handling puts children at risk of injury,” the report added.

Managers also failed to notify Ofsted about a previous ‘significant incident’ which led to a staff member being dismissed because of poor practice, the report says.

Inspectors added that managers “took immediate action to ensure the safety and well-being of children in this room when poor practice was identified during the inspection”.

The private nursery, opened in 2017, looks after 54 children aged 0-4 from a large house in Birmingham Road, Great Barr.

Its 14-strong team provides weekday care all year round.

The inspectors’ observations in the baby room were “in stark contrast” to their positive findings in every other part of the nursery, where care was positive, encouraging and supportive and where learning was fun, the report stated.

The nursery has now been rated as “inadequate” and ordered to take urgent steps to improve via a Welfare Requirements Notice – a form of enforcement notice that Ofsted issues requiring immediate action.