London nursery hit with record fine after mouse droppings found

A branch of Britain’s largest private childcare provider has been hit with a record fine after inspectors found fresh mouse droppings in the kitchen and the children’s play areas of a nursery within an NHS hospital complex in east London.

Busy Bees – which operates 375 nurseries in England, Scotland and Wales – was fined £225,000 and £15,000 in costs by a court in London last week, after pleading guilty to food safety and hygiene offences uncovered at its nursery on the grounds of Whipps Cross university hospital in Leytonstone.

The fine is understood to be one of the largest of its type levied on a single site, after the court heard that inspectors from Waltham Forest council found “extensive evidence” of mouse droppings throughout the kitchen, by the sinks and in a storeroom, as well as in the children’s playrooms.

The council used emergency powers to temporarily close the nursery after the inspection, carried out in January last year.

Khevyn Limbajee, Waltham Forest’s cabinet member for community safety, said the size of the fine was a recognition of the seriousness of the findings.

“When parents entrust their children to attend a nursery, they do so in the belief that they will be left in a safe and clean environment. Young children are particularly vulnerable to diseases due to their developing immune systems.

“The intervention from our team was crucial in preventing children from being exposed to hazardous conditions that could have impacted their health,” Limbajee said.

The nursery had also failed to provide soap in the toilets and there was a lack of hot water because of a faulty boiler, as well as inadequate cleaning in parts of the nursery. Photographs taken by the inspection team showed grime in cupboards used to store children’s drinking cups, as well as mouse droppings on floors.

Matt Labaki, the operations director for Busy Bees, said the company brought in external contractors to look into the problems uncovered by the inspection, and quickly rectified them.

“The independent specialists reviewed the site and implemented a plan to deal with the issues and ensure we meet the required standards. Our actions included a thorough deep clean of the entire premises, including all equipment used within the nursery.

“We have made significant investment in the centre and in retraining staff to ensure all are fully up to speed with current hygiene best practice,” Labaki said.

“At the hearing, the judge acknowledged that this was a localised failing and only related to this particular nursery. It was acknowledged in court that Busy Bees has an excellent record with consistently high gradings in hygiene across our nurseries and that industry-recognised systems and checks are in place.”

Early years experts said parents with concerns about a nursery’s hygiene or food safety should contact the local authority where the provider is based.

The Leytonstone nursery charges about £400 a week for childcare, and is located within the Whipps Cross hospital, part of Barts health NHS trust. The trust has been contacted for comment.

The Busy Bees UK chain is owned by Eagle Superco, which controls hundreds of nurseries and daycares around the world, including in the US, Australia and Vietnam. In the UK, Busy Bees earned £43m in operating profit on turnover of £285m in 2021. Eagle Superco’s major owner is a giant Canadian investment fund, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which has £140bn in net assets.

Last year a nursery in Scotland operated by the Bright Horizons chain was fined £800,000 after a 10-month-old child choked to death on a piece of fruit while left unsupervised.