Administering non prescription medicine in primary schools

[Diddysmummy111]

My understanding of the updated DfE guidance on medicines in school is that they should administer non prescribed medicine with parental consent. The BMA take a dim view of people taking up an appointment to obtain paracetamol that can be bought OTC and they are saying that the Government legislation allows for school to administer Calpol for example without a prescription. Our school are refusing in spite of their policy appearing to support the administration of non-prescription prescription medicine. I just wondered what other people's experiences are with this in their schools?

Parents have to come into give it

We used to give it a nursery with written consent

Totally unnacceptable use of GP time to get a prescription for calpol etc. Imagine if every child in the school did it....

Options are - contact practice manager at your surgery with the issue, and see if they can raise it with the LMC - who can write to local schools telling them they are being outrageous. (Our LMC recently laid down the law with local schools about sick notes). Or, pop along to pharmacy, who will print a label for the bottle - which seems to placate most schools, as usually they assume that this means it has been prescribed!

Our school would say if calpol needs to be given the child should be at home

Our primary would give Calpol only if there were no reason to think the child had an infection.

So no problem sending it in for DS in the first week after he broke his ankle.

Think some things just need a bit of calpol to help a child with a minor ailment. Schools (rightly) complain when kids miss school for other reasons. Can't and shouldn't let them stay home for a minor cold and a dose of calpol at lunchtime would just get them through the day.

Great ideas thanks x

My DD had conjunctivitis recently, I rang the doctors who said some local pharmacies can now deal with minor issues such as this so I said great! No need to waste an appointment when I was quite confident in what it was, took her to the pharmacy who -yes- could deal with it, but this meant the eye drops weren't prescribed, and thus school wouldn't administer them. So she had to be off school for the start of the course of treatment as I couldn't walk to school every 2 hours to give her them.

nursery give one dose - form to fill out when child starts

school happy to give calpol/ibuprofen if parents given verbal consent in the morning and the bottle labelled with child's name (independent school)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3

This is supposed to be followed by schools and means they should administer non prescribed medicine.

www.bma.org.uk/advice/employment/gp-practices/quality-first/manage-inappropriate-workload/prescribing-non-prescription-medication

And the BMA view.....I am in the throes of a "disagreement" let's call it with dd's school.....they really not happy about doing this and fighting me on it.

We give only prescribed meds that need to be taken more than 3 times a day.

Does your child have a medical condition that requires the taking of medicine, rather than an illness?

My daughter has arthritis, amongst other issues. School gives her calpol if she tells them she is struggling with pain. She has her more potent prescription meds at home, but sometimes she needs a dose at lunch to get through the day. It's written in a "non-prescription medication care plan" and there are no issues.

Medical conditions stuff is about long term conditions etc, not a short term illness.

Under EYFS regulations no medicines unless prescribed by a doctor, dentist, pharmacist or nurse can be given by a school/setting.

Horses4
the reason being that your child has a medical condition that requires medication, prescribed or not, because not to do so would affect your child's long term schooling. However most schools will not medicate children for one-off illnesses unless the medication is prescribed.

The school my children attend will only administer medicines that are prescribed and need to be taken more than 3 times a day.

I work in a school where we will administer non prescription medicines with parental consent. We have a long form and conditions around original bottles and being in date.

Administering medicines by staff is voluntary so I suppose if no staff are willing to volunteer to give non prescription medicines it's not going to happen.

Trinity - I think those guidelines have been updated to prevent people wasting doctors time.

Further advice:
In some cases, written instructions from the parent or on the medication container
dispensed by the pharmacist may be considered sufficient, but ultimately this is for
the school to decide, having taken into consideration the training requirements as
specified in pupils’ individual health care plans

The above is the only reference I can see to non-prescription drugs in the linked document. It clearly relates to children with medical conditions as that is what the whole document is about, not children who have a short term illness.

The primary my son attends won’t administer anything at all. This is a huge change from nursery who would. Give calpol and prescribed meds’ with signed consent. It hasn’t mattered yet but if it arises this will be a huge pain.

Yep, I understand the rationale for my daughter's meds being willingly administered. It just surprises me any school would point blank refuse unless it's for a short-term illness.

Or, pop along to pharmacy, who will print a label for the bottle - which seems to placate most schools, as usually they assume that this means it has been prescribed!

Yes, because we're all so thick in schools, that we don't know this is what some parents do.

We have to go to school and administer it ourselves. I had to go every 2 hours for 3 days with eye drops. Luckily I work from Home.
However now my children are old enough to take paracetamol rather than calpol I can put it in an envelope in school office and dd will go to office and take it herself if needed, if she needs it (is a gymnast and a couple of times has had injuries such as sprains ). She also has so. E ibuprofen gel that she can self administer but teacher keeps it

Why would a school refuse to give a non-prescription medicine for a one-off illness, with parental consent? What's the problem? Won't it help improve attendance?

Think some things just need a bit of calpol to help a child with a minor ailment. Schools (rightly) complain when kids miss school for other reasons. Can't and shouldn't let them stay home for a minor cold and a dose of calpol at lunchtime would just get them through the day.

Except that a child who needs a bit of medication to get through the day is most likely also contagious, and whilst they might get through the day, they will also pass on their illness to their peers (and also the teachers).

We've had similar arguments here over Piriton in school which DS is prescribed for food allergies, but which I buy over the counter as easier/ so not to waste NHS resources.

Our HT has finally relented in our case.