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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

School refusing to give antibiotics

539 replies

Slayerofmyth · 21/04/2021 18:14

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.

OP posts:
FireflyRainbow · 21/04/2021 19:15

Space them out she doesn't need them at school.simple.

Slayerofmyth · 21/04/2021 19:15

I don't think my dd could swallow a tablet tbh. Plus school won't allow her to take it in. I don't understand why some schools do it and some don't? Is it not a uniform policy? I'll call GP tomorrow and see what they can do.

OP posts:
Nogoodusername · 21/04/2021 19:15

My school won’t administer antibiotics. Is there another wfh parent friend who could go in and give one dose and then you stagger the other three? (Before school, during school, at 6pm, at bedtime) I wfh 3 days a week and have gone in to give a friend’s child an antibiotics dose a few times - working mums help eachother out and all that!

RuleWithAWoodenFoot · 21/04/2021 19:16

I'm going to suggest something odd, but it might work quickly. Contact your MP, tell them the whole scenario — single working parent in a frontline business, long working day, working at a distance, school refusing to assist your child to take medication and threatening to fine you if you keep her off sick.

Dear god, yep quick, make a molehill into a mountain STAT.

Make sure you use the word 'frontline', or maybe 'critical worker' in bold and font 35, copy in Boris Johnson, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Nigel Farage.

Or just give the medication around school hours. They'll still work.

School are under no obligation to give antibiotics, it's disruptive.

noblegiraffe · 21/04/2021 19:16

It might also be a covid thing - if they are giving medication then they’d need to properly suit up in PPE.

Mayra1367 · 21/04/2021 19:18

Most schools will administer prescribed medication but I think it’s a bit much to ask them to do 2 doses a day .
It is up to each individual member of staff as to whether they agree to administer medication. But I have seen parents make petty complaints about medication being administered not exactly at the time suggested eg 10/15 minutes late so staff then refuse to continue.

impostersong · 21/04/2021 19:18

Schools can decide their own policies but this really isn't helpful. They certainly shouldn't be preventing the medicine being given and then threatening to fine you if she doesn't attend (that wouldn't happen so please don't worry).

Comefromaway · 21/04/2021 19:18

Poor kid, fluclox is vile. But drs dont prescribe it for nothing. It’s used for more serious skin related infections. It’s so vital that the nurse phoned every pharmacy in the city to get Ds a slightly better flavour when he refused and called to warn the emergency out of hours he may need an iv if he refused over the weekend. It’s 4 times a day for a reason.

I gave it at 7am, school gave it at lunchtime, then on pickup and before bed.

UrAWizHarry · 21/04/2021 19:18

I don't get why nobody at a school would be willing to give a kid a spoonful of medicine. It's hardly a time consuming or difficult activity.

Mayra1367 · 21/04/2021 19:20

Suggesting people contact their MP to complain is exactly the attitude which results in staff refusing to give medication 🙈🙈🙈

Hankunamatata · 21/04/2021 19:22

Give her dose at 6pm, 10pm, 2am then when she gets up.

stayingaliveisawayoflife · 21/04/2021 19:22

It isn't uniform policy. The only thing we have to do is administer life saving medicine such as epi pens or inhalers. There are quite a lot of regulations about other medicines such as storage in a lockable fridge, given by a named person and records kept of child, medicine, amount given, date, time etc that can make it more difficult than it may seem. My last school did it but my current school doesn't.

SleepingStandingUp · 21/04/2021 19:22

Can you call their bluff?

Call I nearly tomorrow and say you're calling her in sick as she is home with an infection and needs medicine. She'll be off until X date.

See if anyone calls you back and then see if they'll flex? At 10 presumably of they hand her the syringe and supervise she can give it herself?

Neonprint · 21/04/2021 19:23

God this is bonkers from the school!

SuperMonkeys · 21/04/2021 19:23

I administered antibiotics at lunchtime today, it's hardly rocket science and takes all.of 1.5 minutes.

MichelleScarn · 21/04/2021 19:23

Agree @Mayra1367 and what responsibility do the staff then have if the child refuses to take the medication as it absolutely does taste vile! Would they be expected to be completing a MAR3 for any meds they administer?

Waterfallgirl · 21/04/2021 19:23

Before you go to school governors and the LA @Slayerofmyth have a look on the school website at the policy it should be in there. Schools MUST have a medication policy and advise parents of this,

If it is the school policy the governors will have signed it off also.

If it’s an academy school local authority won’t have any control or influence anyway.

I work in an LA and as a pp said, School staff don’t have to administer any medications - and in some schools no medications are administered at all. In most there will be some staff who do this and are trained to do so.

Many schools have a policy where if it’s antibiotics they advise parents to request 3 dose arrangement from the GP. This is to avoid schools having to administer medications.

One reason for this is....If you have a number of children with regular medications, add in all the eye drops, ear drops other medications staff can be doing this a lot, and it’s not their main job, so most schools will advise that 3 dose antibiotic is the way to go.

I think those posters suggesting the night time dose are your best bet OP, which would solve the issue for you.

Finally, for those saying to self medicate by taking it to school and administering herself, that can be dangerous, what would happen if the child had a reaction, or another child were to take it by accident? This should never be the way to go.

SleepingStandingUp · 21/04/2021 19:23

@Hankunamatata

Give her dose at 6pm, 10pm, 2am then when she gets up.
She's going to be wrecked if op is waking her at 10 for meds, 11 for food, 2 for meds and 3 for food! Even if she just has meds then food, she's still being woken up twice and may find it really hard to get back to sleep. She'll be in no state for school
ballsdeep · 21/04/2021 19:23

@Thirtyrock39

It's a lot of responsibility for schools to administer medication believe it or not. In many care settings only qualified nurses can give medication. I used to work in a special school and did the medications (nhs healthcare assistant) and had to do a fair bit of training and every medication had to be double checked before it was given with another member of staff. And there needs to be proper recording otherwise meds can easily be given twice or not at all. It may sound over the top but imagine the repercussions if a mistake was made so some schools choose to make the decision not to give medication by staff. There's also things like the correct storage - medication needs storing correctly often in fridges which then must be temp checked daily / it's a lot of work if done properly and of not done properly it isn't safe
Agree with you. I know it's a pita but it's really not as easy as giving some medicine. Tbh most staff aren't comfortable doing it because of repercussions of done incorrectly. We only have to forget to give an unnamed jumper at the end of the day and it's like we've ripped limbs off children in the FB and WhatsApp parent groups.
ballsdeep · 21/04/2021 19:26

@Shedbuilder

I'm going to suggest something odd, but it might work quickly. Contact your MP, tell them the whole scenario — single working parent in a frontline business, long working day, working at a distance, school refusing to assist your child to take medication and threatening to fine you if you keep her off sick.

Mark is urgent or, better still, call the constituency office. Sometimes an enquiry from an MP's office can work wonders.

Ffs GET A GRIP

Honest to god MN is crazy sometimes. And you think schools want to give medication with crazy over the top people like this and their stupid reactions????

NeverDropYourMoonCup · 21/04/2021 19:26

@Sorka

YANBU OP. I don’t see why they can’t care for a child in their care. Ridiculous to threaten you with fines as it’s the school that is effectively denying your daughter an education as they won’t support her need to take medication.

As an aside, and I know this isn’t relevant to your problem, but I really hate medicines that have to be kept in a fridge. I once had eye drops that had to be kept in a fridge and taken every two hours. This was made even more impractical by that fact that I was working in London with a 1.5 hour commute that could easily be 2 hours on a bad day. Nightmare.

Well, it means that somebody in the office has to run their day along the lines of;

Drop everything at 11am, go and find the child, bring them back to the office, give them them medication, wash the spoon (if the parent has actually supplied one), fill in the medication log, return them to class, find out they're doing PE, so need to go somewhere else, hope that nobody has had an asthma attack, broken a wrist, hit their head, cut themselves, phoned, rung the intercom or needed urgent attention in another way, then do the same for the second dose, then hunt down the child and parent in the playground at hometime (or stay behind for the afterschool club) to hand over the must be refrigerated medication find out they've gone home without it, repeat the next day, then find out it's been forgotten and is festering in a bag or has spilled everywhere, etc, etc. Then repeat it for anything up to 20 other kids, all on slightly different schedules (or exactly the same, meaning they need to be fetching kids all over the site at once).

It's not the office staff's responsibility to manage somebody else's health for them when it's a short term thing. It takes too much time if they even have a refrigerator solely dedicated to the storage of medication in a secure area (can't go into a staff fridge with sandwiches).

I do give medication as I've been trained and it's the school policy to do so - I don't have to do the short term things, the policy is actually part of supporting kids with long term medical conditions and health care plans. But frankly, we've got shedloads of money and a purpose built area, along with older children who are more able to manage themselves. I also don't have anything to do with reception, switchboard, manning the gate intercoms, signing for deliveries, taking lunch money, finance or anything else that a primary school secretary has to do. As part of the Covid Risk Assessment, it's also often breaching the conditions, as it involves direct contact with multiple year group bubbles; obviously, if somebody's bleeding profusely or needs an EpiPen/inhaler/ambulance/vomiting all over the place, that gets ignored, but not something like this.

A ten day course of antibiotics is not a disability or longterm health condition, for which we are quite rightly obliged to support.

CarmelBeach · 21/04/2021 19:27

@Shedbuilder

I'm going to suggest something odd, but it might work quickly. Contact your MP, tell them the whole scenario — single working parent in a frontline business, long working day, working at a distance, school refusing to assist your child to take medication and threatening to fine you if you keep her off sick.

Mark is urgent or, better still, call the constituency office. Sometimes an enquiry from an MP's office can work wonders.

I second this

Ridiculous behaviour by the school.

NeverDropYourMoonCup · 21/04/2021 19:30

@Shedbuilder

I'm going to suggest something odd, but it might work quickly. Contact your MP, tell them the whole scenario — single working parent in a frontline business, long working day, working at a distance, school refusing to assist your child to take medication and threatening to fine you if you keep her off sick.

Mark is urgent or, better still, call the constituency office. Sometimes an enquiry from an MP's office can work wonders.

HA HA HA HA!

Who do you think would be taking the call? The person you expect to be running around fetching children for medication because the parents don't see why they shouldn't expect it of them.

'Sorry, didn't do the dose because by the time I got off the phone from your MP, complaining I wasn't doing it, it was lunchtime and too late to do it anyhow'.

ThirdIC15 · 21/04/2021 19:31

We would give any prescription medicine of four times a day at the school I work in, only 3 times a day is denied as this can be administered before school, at hometime and at bedtime

Sirzy · 21/04/2021 19:32

Again what would an MP do given schools do not have to give short term medication and any staff member can refuse. And given some of the comments on here it’s no wonder some do refuse!

Ds has had to have inhaler like clockwork(ish!) as part of the dinner time routine in school since he started. He is in year 6 now but this still involves them recording when it is given and who it is given by. Same for the feeds he is given in school.

Now that’s long term and he couldn’t safely go to school without staff having agreed to facilitate (and because it is long term, life saving essential medication the school would have had to find a way around things) but I don’t for a second think that it doesn’t create extra work for staff!

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