BABIES and young children in at least 1,000 childcare settings were put at risk last year because providers failed to meet basic minimum standards.
A report from the childcare watchdog Ofsted found that staff in nurseries are still being hired without proper background checks and that some childcarers do not have basic first-aid knowledge.
Safe and Sound, published yesterday by the Office for Standards in Education, concluded that while the majority of early-years childcare providers offer a safe service, considerable failings persist.
In one of the worst examples, a nursery was closed after inspectors uncovered a string of shortcomings, including a failure by management to check staff suitability, lack of appropriate qualifications held by the manager and other staff, and a complete lack of first-aid skills among the entire staff.
Inspectors also found that staff did not know what they were supposed to do if they felt a child was being abused and that there was not enough for the children to do.
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Other providers closed down included a childcarer who physically assaulted a child and a childminder who was sharing her home with someone deemed unsuitable to be involved with the care of children.
The report noted that some nurseries did not have enough staff on duty at the start of the day, when many babies and toddlers could be crying after being dropped off by a parent and in need of extra care. It is also a time when staff are busy setting out equipment and moving children between rooms.
Some childcare providers were also criticised for failing to keep entrances to premises secure and for not ensuring that children and staff washed their hands after going to the lavatory, caring for pets or before eating.
Although only 16 childcare providers were closed in the year to March, nearly 12,000 were ordered by the watchdog to improve their safety standards and 14,000 improvements were ordered.
Ofsted inspected 25,000 childcare nurseries, childminders, crèches and out-of-school organisations providing care for under-8s and found that 4 per cent, 1,000 settings, were “inadequate”.
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Extrapolated over all 108,000 registered settings in England, providing 1.5 million places for children, this would amount to 4,320 childcare providers falling below the minimum national standards.
Dorian Bradley, Ofsted’s director of early years, said: “There is still some way to go to ensure that every child in every setting is safe and sound, all day, every day.
“We will continue to monitor inadequate childcare providers closely and take enforcement action where necessary to ensure that all children are kept safe and well-cared for.”
Inspectors said that while the number of settings judged to be inadequate had risen since the previous inspection year from 1 per cent to 4 per cent, this was because they had raised the bar this year. There were 1,500 complaints relating to child protection and safety, and 400 regarding child health.
Liz Bayram, of the National Childminding Association, said she was pleased that the vast majority of childcare providers were judged to be satisfactory or good.
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She cautioned, however, that as inspection standards were expected to be raised again with the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage, it would be difficult for childcare providers to continue to raise standards without further investment from Government.
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, added that nurseries in the private and voluntary sectors were not receiving enough state resources to support the levels of improvement expected by the Government.
With nursery fees ranging from £110 to £250 a week, parents were already overstretched and it would not be possible to pass on the cost of further improvements to them.
A spokesman for the Department for Education said that the vast majority of parents could be very confident that their children were kept safe and healthy in their chosen childcare setting.
“We encourage childcare providers to consider how they can make additional improvements to their setting and raise the quality of provision further,” he said.