At some stage in their school journey most children need to take medication at school. Only staff who have been trained are able to administer medicines.

Our requirements for giving medicines in school are strict because they are governed by the statutory DfE guidance ‘Supporting Children with Medical Conditions’. We carefully review any medicines brought into school, as we are only permitted to administer medicines under certain circumstances. 

Our procedures for giving medicines in school are as follows:

Prescription medicines

MUST be brought into school in the original containers as dispensed by the pharmacist and labelled with the child’s name. We will request you to complete a form giving us permission to administer the medication quoting the dose and frequency. You will need to complete a form for every medication that is brought into school. All medicines must be in date.  If there should be left over medicine or if it has passed its expiry date then it must be collected from the school as it cannot be disposed of by the school.

Where clinically possible we will encourage parents to ask for medicines to be prescribed in dose frequencies which enable them to be taken outside of school hours. Therefore, for children who are prescribed antibiotics three times a day we ask parents to schedule the doses outside of the school day. We will administer antibiotics with a four times a day dosage.

Non-prescribed medicines

Non-prescribed medicines will not normally be administered in school.  

Administration of pain relief

We do hold age-appropriate Emergency Calpol in school, which we will give if we are in receipt of written permission from the parent. We will check with parents before giving Calpol to confirm that children have not previously taken any medication containing paracetamol within the preceding 4 hours, and will only give one dose.

We will never administer aspirin or medicine containing Ibuprofen to any child, unless it has been prescribed by a doctor.

Emergency Medication – Asthma Inhalers and Adrenaline Auto-injectors

These will be kept in the medical room and administered by staff trained to administer medicines when required. We have Emergency Salbutamol Inhalers in school for use only if a child’s inhaler is empty or fails, but we require permission from parents to administer it. Health Care Plans for all children with prescribed emergency medication are reviewed and updated annually.

If your child needs any form of medication in school, please speak to the school office in the first instance. There will always be a form for you to complete to give permission, as we cannot give any medicine without your written consent. 

PLEASE DO NOT HAND ANY MEDICINE TO CLASS STAFF OR PUT IT IN YOUR CHILD’S BOOKBAG - ALWAYS BRING THE MEDICINE TO THE SCHOOL OFFICE