Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance is in place on the provision schools must make for children with allergies at risk of anaphylaxis.

Governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies have a legal duty to ensure that their school has a policy in place to support pupils with medical conditions. The department’s statutory guidance ‘Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions at School’ makes it clear to schools what is expected of them in taking reasonable steps to fulfil their legal obligations and to meet the needs of pupils with medical conditions, including allergies. The guidance provides advice on a range of areas including staff training, administration of medicines and consulting with parents. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3.

Schools should also be aware of Department of Health and Social Care guidance for schools on adrenaline auto-injectors: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/using-emergency-adrenaline-auto-injectors-in-schools. Any member of staff may volunteer to take on the responsibilities set out in this guidance, but they cannot be required to do so.

We have also made allergies part of the Health Education curriculum for all pupils in state funded schools, which has been mandatory since September 2020. Schools must have regard to the guidance we have issued, which sets out that pupils should be taught about the facts and science relating to allergies, immunisation and vaccination: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.

In addition to this, officials in the department work closely with the Health Conditions in Schools Alliance, of which the Anaphylaxis Campaign is a member, to explore how we can supplement the statutory requirements with accessible resources to help schools to improve the way they support children with allergies.