The national operator of a Barrow nursery has had its registration suspended for six weeks.
Bright Horizons Family Solutions Ltd operates up to 300 nurseries across the country, including Barrow Day Nursery at Furness General Hospital.
Education watchdog Ofsted has suspended its registration as a childcare provider until September 1.
It said it reasonably believed that the continued provision of childcare may expose children to a risk of harm.
The suspension allows time for further enquiries to be made and/or for steps to be taken to eliminate the risk of harm.
It added that the suspension did not automatically mean that a provider would be unsuitable to provide care in the future or that its registration as a childcare provider would be cancelled.
It said it only took steps to cancel a registration if it considered that a provider was no longer suitable to provide childcare.
The suspension comes after Ofsted issued Bright Horizons a Welfare Requirements Notice on Monday.
It means that the chain must address all identified safeguarding and welfare failures by August 1.
Ofsted said it had been investigating the chain after concerns were raised following a serious safeguarding incident which happened last September. No location for the incident is revealed.
It said the concerns indicated that Bright Horizons may not be meeting requirements of safeguarding and welfare.
But it said that the notice related to organisational arrangements and did not necessarily reflect concerns identified at individual nurseries.
It said that the majority of Bright Horizons nurseries continued to meet requirements.
The education watchdog has carried out inspections, site visits and direct engagement with senior leaders at 172 Bright Horizon nurseries, identifying breaches of requirements in 69 of them.
In some settings, it found the provider was not meeting a number of the safeguarding and welfare requirements due to significant weaknesses in organisational safeguarding leadership, governance, oversight and practice.
No recent inspection information has been published about Barrow Day Nursery. Its last inspection took place in 2022 and the nursery was rated good overall.
The Northampton-headquartered chain must, by August 1:
- Ensure that all senior leaders are fully familiar with, and are able to effectively apply safeguarding policies, procedures and arrangements within their oversight role
- Ensure that safeguarding policies, procedures and arrangements are consistently and effectively implemented across all settings
- Ensure that senior leaders, including the Nominated Individual, maintain accurate and timely oversight of safeguarding concerns and risks across the organisation, so that appropriate and timely action is taken to protect children
- Ensure that safeguarding concerns are consistently identified, recorded, escalated and responded to appropriately across all settings, including consideration of emerging patterns and cumulative risk, in line with statutory safeguarding guidance
- Ensure that the procedures to manage allegations against staff are consistently followed across the settings, including the timely and accurate identification and escalation of concerns, recognition of when concerns meet the threshold for an allegation, prompt referral to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and notification to Ofsted where required. Ensure these actions are subject to appropriate organisational oversight
- Review and strengthen current arrangements for monitoring safeguarding training, supervision and support to ensure these are effective in securing consistent staff
understanding and application of safeguarding responsibilities across all settings, including recognition of child protection concerns, escalation routes and whistleblowing procedures - Ensure that any weaknesses in staff knowledge or practise of safeguarding responsibilities are swiftly addressed, and that robust and effective systems are in place to monitor and evaluate the impact of training and supervision on safeguarding practice
Ofsted said it would monitor the chain’s response.
