Medication at school

[130323A]

Would love to hear experiences of how this is working for people at boarding school. And some advice too.

DS Y9 full birding school after weekly boarding prep. Has asthma and allergy meds to take each morning and afternoon. It’s been a real struggle to get this to happen consistently. I bag it all up - so there is an am and pm bag for each day. They send them back at half term/end of term and so far he is taking 2/3 of what he should be. Epipens came home at Easter and we’re out of date. 😱😱 School moved his GP to their local one and I understood that they were managing this. I don’t even have the details which makes me feel very uncomfortable.

What am I missing here? How can I improve this situation? We’ve got a good relationship with the matrons and have spoken to school house tutor /parent countless times - we make all the right noises, but then these bags of things come home. I send a sheet for each week, for ticking off - but never saw that again. We’ve done reminders on phones and email alerts for DC. We pop in to see them whenever we go and send Christmas presents (I know that sounds lame, but we really do appreciate the effort put in to support our DS).

School talk about personal responsibility but DS is not great on organisational skills and is feeling quite overwhelmed at “having to do this stuff and remember”.

I would love to hear how other schools do this and how your DC manage all this? Any experience /advice of schools making the right noises but not putting things into action?

Can you not check the expiry date on epipen before you send him away with it for a term so it's in date the whole time? Is there an app you could use to encourage him to take his medication or set up alarms on his phone?

Ignore that! Sorry! See you've done all that.

We have this too. School says it does nit checks but it doesn’t and DC keep getting reinfected from other kids who have not been diagnosed and treated. Have emailed, phoned and been in to talk to the matrons and nurses and they promise to do proper inspections and nothing ever happens.

Also school are appalling about enforcing tooth brushing - DC come home with yellow teeth and now cavities because “We were told to get into bed even though I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet”

In all other respects the school is great but this drives me insane.

I think the problem is that at most schools this morning and bedtime routine stuff is delegated to 18 year old gap year students who have no clue and take the path of least resistance.

If it doesn’t get better next term I am going to write formally to the head of safeguarding so it goes in the record and they will have to document action.

Another possibility for you could be to get a private GP to write a letter to the school setting out the potential medical consequences if your child doesn’t take his medication. I would also contact the GP your child has been signed up to and see if they can raise it with the school nursing team. Good luck 🤞

I think you the only thing you can do is to make your child responsible for his meds and why he must have them, he is old enough to understand how important it is to have them every day even if he feels overwhelmed by it. I know he probably won't be allowed to have them with him in his dorm (my daughter is a full boarder, now in yr10 and she can't even have throat lozenges!) but he needs to be brave and insist he gets them at the appropriate time, every time. If they refuse him then he needs to let you know every single time and what the excuse was and then you can take it up immediately and every time too until they take it seriously. He really must advocate for himself.

I do sympathise though, my daughter is dyspraxic and would hate to have to a) remember to take her meds as she is totally disorganised and scatty and b) badger staff for them as she doesn't like to be a bother. And I kind of sympathise with the staff as it's chaos in house, but the house mistress / master should absolutely be on top of such an important thing and be checking your son has had his meds.

I don't know anything about epipens, how long a shelf life do they have? If longer than 6 weeks, I would ensure I checked them during each holiday so they go back with a full terms cover, so one less thing to worry about.

Good luck, I hope you get it sorted.

Twice a day every day should be easier than less often. I would try to get DS to link it onto another thing he is already doing successfully. Maybe he goes directly after dinner every night, or directly after he brushes his teeth.

Could you phone him every night and morning to check for a couple of weeks? It's not forever. The goal is not for him to "get better at remembering", it's to embed the meds into his routine so he no longer has to remember, if that makes sense. Then the routine takes over and does the job for him almost.

At my school (some time ago) there would usually be a queue of people to see matron so it was not a question of bothering her. Rather, it was can I be arsed to join that queue and waste my free time waiting, when I would rather be doing something more interesting? Hopefully that is no longer the case. Get him to talk through the minutiae of getting his meds. There might be a social blocker you're not seeing, that is hard for him to put his finger on or articulate. He wants to get a good seat in the TV room and he misses out if he spends time getting his meds, or he misses going down to school with his friends if he stops to get his meds in the morning, or whatever. Or maybe it's really a hearts and minds thing that he doesn't think they are that important or he is liking having this bit of control. "I forgot" is a genuine reason, but it can also be a get-out from explaining a much more complicated truth.

I'd start, at least initially, by calling either him or the school every morning and afternoon to check meds have been taken.

The epipens being out of date are a serious incident in my view. I would email the Head, Safeguarding lead and Matron and flag it as a serious incident. Ask for an investigation to be carried out into what went wrong, request an incident report and a plan to ensure this doesn't happen in future.

These are lifesaving medications for your child and you are going to have to be pro-active here rather than leave it up to the school.

@130323A my son is in his first year at Uni but previously was at boarding school. He has severe nut allergies and is asthmatic.

Your DS is still a little young to take full responsibility for his meds regime. Also boarding school life is extremely busy and he will have a lot to organise as it is. I think he needs more help.

Epipens are the easiest to address. I found over the years ours had a minimum 9 months expiration date and when we are lucky they have 18 months. I took full responsibility for this and simply set up an alert on my phone and in my desk diary a month before these needed replacing. I let the school GP know when they needed replacing.

He carried his epipens in a special meds bag at all times along with piriteze tablets which in my view are more important than epipens.

His school kept epipens in the dining hall and in the school medical centre, these weren’t specifically for him but for whoever might need them.

Regarding taking his inhaler, my son was conscientious about taking his as he hated the feeling of being ill from asthma. I would suggest you let your DS’s matron and housemaster know he is not reliable at taking them and ask them to let the residents know it is part of the lights off routine to watch him take a puff on his inhaler. In the morning it is probably more matrons job. It depends how your DS’s house is run.

The sheet for ticking off meds is a good idea, we didn’t do that.

My son typically came home very other weekend for 24 hours and was used to the first thing I would say is “meds inspection” and he would have to show me he had an inhaler in his pocket and his meds bag in his hoody pocket or in his rucksack. There was eye rolling but it’s too important and my son was compliant as he knew it was because we cared.

Hope this is helpful. Not trying to be mean here but however good the boarding school no one will be a substitute for a parents care. You will need to agree a system with his boarding house and keep an eye on it.

Are you the poster who’s son is struggling at boarding school and isn’t going to achieve 5 GCSE’s. He is happier there? If he is unhappy then just maybe impacting his ability for self care. Or could he struggling with the organisational aspect of managing his meds?