School refusing to give antibiotics

[Slayerofmyth]

My daughter has warts on her arm that have become infected. She has been prescribed antibiotics four times a day in liquid form that have to be kept in fridge. She has one dose upon wakening but needs 2 more doses throughout school day. I work so can't get to school to give it, theres no one else. School are refusing to give it, I've said I'll keep her off then so I can administer ( taking time off work,), they say I'll get a fine for absence. What the heck am I supposed to do? Please advise.

@Nith you suspect wrong! I have been a qualified teacher for 12 years and I have yet to work in a school where short term medication such as antibiotics is to be administered by staff! For the reasons I and several other posters have mentioned!! Thankyou for patronising my integrity though, really helps to be slated by someone who doesn’t know me!!

@Nith

How can a school be reasonable if it is breaking the law?

If nobody on the staff volunteers to medicate a child then the law cannot be enforced, obviously.

if nobody on the staff volunteers to medicate a child then the school needs to hire staff that can.

@redcandlelight

if nobody on the staff volunteers to medicate a child then the school needs to hire staff that can.

But it isn’t about that, I have had detailed training repeatedly to administer an epi pen that is organised weeks in advance!! In terms of short term medication provided for immediate administration who has the time to organise training for that...each case is individual to each child!

@redcandlelight

if nobody on the staff volunteers to medicate a child then the school needs to hire staff that can.

But even then it’s not that simple because more than one staff member would need to be trained and that takes time and money and who do you Sack?

Every member of staff in DS school is not only inhaler trained but has had specific asthma training for his asthma. He is changing schools in September so training will be needed again. That’s a couple of hours of the years inset training used.

He also has other conditions which require very specific training for staff just so he can attend

There is a difference between long term medical conditions requiring medication ( such as epilepsy, asthma etc) where medication and support can and must be available. But short term medication doesn't fall under "medical conditions " and so many schools will have very different rules. Some schools, as we have seen, don't allow any short term medication, some only one dosage per day, some only prescribed medication and some anything at all! Each will be in response to available staff, school culture and staffing levels or perhaps previous experience where things have gone wrong. You need to check any prospective schools policy and work from there.

[quote Radio4Rocks]@MarchXX

Perhaps they are not employing staff who care about children's welfare or just can't be bothered following their official council policies. That is a red flag for me if a school cannot find even one or two members of staff (can be teaching assistants,support assistants or office staff, too) and also cannot be bothered to provide basic privacy so children can get changed with dignity.

Perhaps it's because they do care that they do not feel qualified to medicate children. DS1 went into anaphylactic shock halfway through a course of penicillin when he was 6. Fortunately he was at home and we knew what to do and an ambulance was there is minutes.

The fear of this is why some will not medicate children. I know I wouldn't.[/quote]
That's horrific, @Radio4Rocks . What a way to find out he was allergic to penicilin.

No wonder it has put you off .

It was terrifying at the time. My father is allergic to penicillin as well and I'd seen him go into shock when I was a teenager so I knew right away what was happening.

It transpired a couple of years later that I am as well now. This despite having had it several times before. Fortunately I had a mild asthma attack and not shock.

Antibiotics are wonderful but carry risks.

Schools are not obliged to give medicines

@Supergirl1958 you had "detailed training" to administer an epi pen?! I'd love to know what the consists of? I'm a nurse and part of my role includes teaching people to use an epi pen. Takes under 10 mins. I could teach a child to self administer in 5.

Even if the worst happened and a child had an allergic reaction and/or went into anaphylaxis, the staff would need to call and ambulance, the same as a parent at home would, or a sports coach, or anyone else who finds themselves in contact with kids. People become allergic to all kinds of things all the time. It's not medicines specific! No room for litigation provided an ambulance was called

@Slayerofmyth

Update.....I've got a new prescription for Erythromycin, twice a day so that problem is solved. I'm still furious about the way I've been treated though and angry that my DD hasn't had the medication she needed because of their stupid policies, considering many other schools manage just fine. I'm going to make an official complaint about this episode and the getting changed in front of boys for PE. Thanks to everyone for trying to help.

You sound incredibly petty: “I’m making an official complaint because the staff refused to ignore the school policy. She has a different medicine now, but I’m still complaining.”

The Gp has changed your DD’s prescription to something else now that is suitable for a school aged child. The previous medication only had to be taken on an empty stomach. I’m not sure why you thought she had to take it an hour before food?

I missed the part about getting changed in PE in front of the boys. I think post schools separate the boys and girls when they’re in Year 6.

@Owl55

Schools are not obliged to give medicines

Yes, they are in some circumstances. See the guidance referred to upthread.

[quote Restlessinthenorth]@Supergirl1958 you had "detailed training" to administer an epi pen?! I'd love to know what the consists of? I'm a nurse and part of my role includes teaching people to use an epi pen. Takes under 10 mins. I could teach a child to self administer in 5.

Even if the worst happened and a child had an allergic reaction and/or went into anaphylaxis, the staff would need to call and ambulance, the same as a parent at home would, or a sports coach, or anyone else who finds themselves in contact with kids. People become allergic to all kinds of things all the time. It's not medicines specific! No room for litigation provided an ambulance was called

[/quote]
Wow are you really questioning my integrity! Not that it matters but I’ll humour you all the same! Theory about how and why we have allergic reactions...the science bit. We then had modelled to us how to administer the epipen and then also practiced on each other!! The training took around an hour. And had to be refreshed every teacher who taught that child!

Hope that helps lovely!!

@Supergirl1958 Not questioning your integrity in the slightest, but it's really odd when people get so touchy about others questioning things that they share on a public forum! But a single hour of training out of a year really isn't "in depth" or time intensive, is it? In fact it's incredibly brief and really just an important bit of first aid training for those who work with children, wouldn't you agree?

@Restlessinthenorth you said it takes five minutes no? This is an hour of detailed training that has to be updated, takes weeks to organise...this thread is about administering short term medication not about epi pens!

In this scenario let’s agree to disagree...you are qualified to administer medicine and that’s that. I got touchy because you were rude and judgemental! You didn’t have to pick on my post, but you did so I gave you a satisfactory reply and you still picked on it!!

Speak to the Head and explain your predicament. Got to say as long as the antibiotics go in, I personally never fussed too much with timings and any infections my children had cleared up with no reoccurrences.

@Supergirl1958 picked on? Do you mean responded to? This is a site where people tend to do that....that's kind of how threads work. I've also responded to other posters on this thread too. Your definition of rude must be something different to mine. I also said it takes 10 minutes to teach the administration of an epi pen. I stand by that. The organisation time is neither here nor there....everything we do in the work place has organisation time attached to it. That's part of working life! You were the person who first mentioned epi pens so I'm not sure why you have so much issue with me responding to it. I would argue it would take about the same length of time to teach someone how to safely administer an oral med if that helps. But let's agree to disagree!

@Restlessinthenorth yes I did mention epi pens but only to make the point that administering medication requires training...ala epi pens!

Not only have you questioned my integrity but you are now questioning my intelligence! Both are rude and judgemental...please don’t reply any more to my posts!! I haven’t once questioned your training as a nurse, but yet you’re continually calling into question my job! Leave me alone!!

🤦‍♀️

@Restlessinthenorth - I would say the biggest pain with adrenaline autoinjectors is the parents bringing in out of date epipens, GPs not prescribing enough for 2 to be brought into school, and some parents asking to drop off and collect their child’s epipens each day (meaning you have to check every day they haven’t forgotten to bring them back each morning). The onus and cost is then on school staff to ensure auto injectors are in date and enough are available - and whilst it is probably safer to use an out of date epipen than nothing at all, staff are advised never to do this unless given an explicit instruction to do so by the emergency services. So there is the background fear of liability for doing the wrong thing while trying to do the right thing that is not remedied by 10 minutes once a year of playing with pretend autoinjectors in front of a nurse who, if it only takes 10 minutes to teach people about anaphylaxis, is being very slack, imvho!

@Walkaround completely agree with all the challenges you describe however they have to be over come to be way or another because as you obviously know, this is lifesaving medication. Parents certainly have to be held accountable for playing their part and the repercussions if something goes wrong as a result.

FYI....I follow a national training package on delivering training in epi pen administration. It does NOT take any longer than 10 mins to train someone in the practicalities of epi pen delivery, I promise you! This is clearly delivered as part of a wider training package but it's a very simple technique in itself. People could have practiced 5 times in a 5 min period, which is clearly demonstrated by the previous poster explaining it took less than an hour to have this taught including background about the mechanics of anaphylaxis itself

We are having the PE changing debate at primary. Our y5/y6 change separately they split/swap over (currently doing whole day in PE kit) but y4 and under don't and still changing in classroom. Some yes are quite well developed and quite uncomfortable with it all.

@LittleOwl153

We are having the PE changing debate at primary. Our y5/y6 change separately they split/swap over (currently doing whole day in PE kit) but y4 and under don't and still changing in classroom. Some yes are quite well developed and quite uncomfortable with it all.

Totally! From KS2 upwards boys and girls change separately, though at the moment we aren’t allowing PE kits in school due to Covid

@Restlessinthenorth - yes, of course it only takes 10 mins to learn how to stab someone in the right part of the thigh. As pointed out, that’s not all that is involved for schools that want to do the right thing by their children and it’s patronising to pretend it is just a case of taking 10 minutes to learn how to do that, as that is not all that is involved. And fyi, it’s not just the parents that would be held accountable if the school didn’t ensure their children had the correct medication with them and it was used properly - hence my irritation that anyone thinks the OP expecting the school to administer 2 doses of an antibiotic too close together to be following the prescription is a reasonable expectation just because the parent thinks so. One dose is a reasonable expectation, 2 doses contrary to the wording on the prescription is an unfair expectation. So, regardless of how unreasonable the school was about administering one dose, the parent’s original expectation was also somewhat unreasonable in this instance!

If there is a GP on here, can they tell me why one can get slow release antibiotics for animals but not for humans? When our cat got into a fight, our vet gave him an antibiotic shot for a nasty bite on his stomach and when I asked if there were any follow up tablets to administer or did I need to bring him back for another shot at some time, she just said, no, it's slow release and will continue for work over the next week. It seems amazing to me that we can do that for animals but not humans? It would make life so much simpler!