School trips & prescription requirements

[JayJ37]

Advice: My kid suffers from terrible travel sickness as well as hay fever. School requires any medication administered on upcoming residential school trip is supported by a prescription. But travel medication and cetirizine are considered minor ailments available over the counter and my GP says they cannot write a prescription for them. They will write me a letter saying my child needs this but school has said they wont accept anything but a prescription. Caught between a rock and a hard place. Where can I go with this? I dont want my child to suffer needlessly with this red tape.

This is not acceptable from the school. Where I am a governor we ask parents to agree that the school administers drugs and we make it clear that these can be prescription or non prescription. Non prescription is usually hay fever, travel sickness and similar as you describe. There is no requirement for these to have a prescription at all. We certainly do administer these types of drugs on our residentials. Do they have a medicine administration policy and if so, does it really say prescription only?

weve just been prescribed phergen (sp?) for my ds3 whos travel sick its given the night before and is also an anti histamine maybe ask the docter about it?

My ds has been taking cetirizine for years for his allergy, and has been prescribed. School have stock, and will take it with them on trips, and administer it if needed. I think you need the health care plan if it's a regular thing, then it will just be a routine to take meds on a trip.

Also, when my ds went on to the residential, the school sent all parents to ask the permission to give the child travel sickness meds/antihistamine in case of insect bite. We can agree or disagree, but they were prepared, and if we needed specific meds for travel sickness/allergy, they asked us to provide it with written permission to administer.

We just had this for a trip earlier in the week. The paperwork was very firm that all medicines needed to be prescription labelled etc. I had a letter compose saying along the lines of "these are the over-the-counter pills that my child needs in order to not vomit copiously all over the coach and fellow pupils and of course and nearby staff. They are not prescribed because they do not need to be. You absolutely have my full permission and authority to administer them. You also have the right to a policy which says you won't do so, in which case I advise you to take a very large amount of cleaning materials with you as the cleanup job will not be pleasant. Your choice"

However, this letter never got sent. Someone else must have got in there first as the day after the paperwork was sent home, a "clarification" was issued to confirm that no prescription evidence would be required for over-the-counter medicines.

It is really frustrating but they say they won't. She is able to take cetirizine on her residential trip with Brownies but not with her school. As I understand it it is the Borough (we are in London) which requires this of its schools

Have taken it to the head and asked how can escalate further. And to the people of Mumsnet for their experience!

Phone your local council and ask them for clarification!

Glad you followed up - my school also has the prescription only rule but this is just to stop parents bringing in sick kids dosed up on calpol - they'll happily administer hay fever or travel sickness medication.

I am not sure about travel sickness meds, but I don't understand why GP can't prescribe cetirizine for hay fever. My ds has been prescribed all the different kind of antihistamines, including things like cetirizine and piriton.

Schools can have their own drug administration policies. They are not required to say it’s prescription drugs or no drugs at all. The LA cannot tell a school what to do. It can only advise the school of the law. Refusing to administer non prescription drugs is not a requirement of any law. They are making it up if they say it’s a requirement. We follow guidance from our LA and policies are based on their guidance and often their exact wording. Ours clearly states non prescription drugs can be administered. Parents agree and tell the school what to give and when. Have you seen the actual policy the school is referring to.

It's a complete waste of GP time and NHS money to prescribe something that can be cheaply bought over the counter, just to satisfy school paperwork irvineoneohome

Join care in the chemist ours put a proper label on With name and dosage etc and that satisfies school

Give the outward dose when you say goodbye. Tell the teacher to take buckets and gloves for the return trip. That might help them to change their minds.

Tinywhale,
My ds's case is different, since he suffers from life threatening allergy and prescribed all the meds since he was a baby.

But I just thought if OP has gone to see the gp, I just wondered why he/she couldn't prescribe antihistamine there and then. But obviously I was wrong to assume it. Never my intentions to encourage people to waste anyone's time. Sorry.

Government guidelines on medications in school are here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3

Non-prescription medications can be given, except Aspirin, with written parental consent, secure storage, correct record-keeping and can only be administered from the correctly-labelled box. If half a tablet is required (often the case where roses have to be topped up), it has to be cut with a pill cutter, not just snapped into two pieces. Multiply all of this by half the class, add in that staff can not be made to do this unless it is in their job description, imagine doing all of this on a trip out of school with a coach-full of children to supervise and you can see why many schools just say "No".

With travel sickness tablets for a day trip, just buy the type that lasts 8 hours and get a prescription if your child is allergic to those brands.

Roses= doses

Autocorrect again.

Ask the pharmacist if he will label the box for you with your child’s name and the age appropriate dose.

DS's school just said to take one tablet before school trip and bring another for return journey in a labelled envelope and hand it to teacher in charge of trip. That's common sense. No need for unnecessary prescriptions and parent stress.

Can be a pharmacist prescription, not just a doctor etc... basically it needs the sticky label with the child’s name on and dosage instructions printed on

Apple - why do you think half a class is taking medication? That would be very high unless it’s a special school. The fact is that schools do residential trips quite happily and children take medication that is non prescription as long as the guidelines are followed. The school policy has to follow government advice but not go beyond it. By being difficult they could possibly exclude otherwise healthy children and waste nhs time and money. That’s not acceptable. Teachers do have to accept a few children need additional medication for different activities and going on a coach and travel sickness is one of them that can easily be accommodated with common sense. Since when did half a class have travel sickness? Also you do not need a medical plan for travel sickness or the odd bout of hay fever. Again totally over the top.

Any sensible person would rather be responsible for giving a common, over-the-counter medicine with parental permission than be elbow deep in vomit before you’ve even hit the motorway.