Schools administering medicine to kids

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blessedmum
Posts: 298
Joined: Fri Jul 30, 2010 11:39 pm

Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by blessedmum »

Since when have primary schools stopped administering medicine to kids.

younger dd has tonsillitis, she is fine in her self and running every where, no temperature, no headaches nothing. Dr says she's ok to go to school.

School advised she has to stay home to complete her course of antibiotics because they are not allowed to administer medicine at school except the child can do it herself or either myself or dh come into school to administer it everyday. the course is for seven days.

Well i certainly do not expect a 6yr old to administer antibiotics herself and neither can i sit at home for a week with a child that is well in herself and playing around. It broke my heart today as she burst into tears saying she wants to go to school. Poor thing has to stay home for another day.

I am having to resort to her going back tomorrow with aupair going in at lunch time to administer the medicine.

Is it me or has the govt gone mad or is it the school?
hermanmunster
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Location: The Seaside

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by hermanmunster »

Have come across this quite often - can understand the problems for the school over responsibilty but on the other hand if the things is labelled it is not rocket science :roll:

I suppose I can understand there would be more problems with an "as required" med eg paracetamol when someone is trying to decided if the kid needs it or not as opposed to something already prescribed

Trouble is with tonsillitis it will either be Pen V or eyrthro both of which are four times daily doses - hence the trouble of spreading them out as really could do with the lunchtime dose.

Three times daily is always OK - brekkers, tea and beddy byes.

Had problem once with DS having conjunctivitis (which most of the time doesn't need treating) - nusery wouldn't let him go unless it was - so got the drops, anyway they wouldn't dispense them as it was a private script and didn't have a standard label on it. :wink: Anyway eyes cleared up themselves by the time they had got there head around it .... :roll: :lol:
marigold
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Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:14 pm
Location: essex

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by marigold »

As far as I can remember it has always been like this. Very annoying.

In similar situations I have got around it by giving the lunch time dose at 3.15 in the playground when I picked up my child. Perhaps one of the forums resident doctors could say whether or not this is an acceptable delay. It has never caused us any problems but may not be suitable for all antibiotics.
solimum
Posts: 1420
Joined: Wed May 09, 2007 3:09 pm
Location: Solihull, West Midlands

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by solimum »

6 might be a little young for this but could you send the lunchtime dose in her bag in one of those tiny jars/pots (like the single portion jam jars they have in hotels) for her to have with her lunch? No need for measuring...
Rob Clark
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Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2008 1:59 pm

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by Rob Clark »

Try having a child with a chronic medical condition! Many primary school children with Type I diabetes have to adopt a less than ideal insulin regime (which in turn is worse for their long-term health) simply to avoid the need to inject at lunchtime.

I have total sympathy with individual teachers who do not wish to take on this level of responsibility, but the system is crap.

sorry, off hobbyhorse now
hermanmunster
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Location: The Seaside

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by hermanmunster »

appreciate the problem Rob - does little to de medicalise chronic conditions....

Re antibiotics and intervals. just been looking at this - erythromycin can be prescribed as say 125mg four times daily OR 250mg twice daily...

The standard formularies in use here seem to have penicillin only as a four times daily dose but wider hunting of the literature shows that it is used twice daily in some parts of the world - and indeed meta analysis papers show that double dose twice a day is just as effective.....

I feel an audit coming on, if this is the case then could help a lot of parents... (not you Rob - appreciate that)
scarlett
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Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2010 10:22 am

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by scarlett »

If you look up on the internet, Administration of medication in schools, there is lots of info and usually from your local council re teachers giving medication.It says that although they are not legally obliged, teachers do have a in loco parentis duty of care and especially children with long term medical problems, a care plan should be drawn up between the schools assigned nurse, parents and teachers. Re other short term medicines , most schools have staff who have been appropriately trained and this is important to ensure the child can still attend school.

At my dc school I have been called in to remove a splinter from dd finger ( 20 mins before hometime!) rang urgently to come and help with a child who was having an asthma attack ...and who they were panicking over....but then on the other hand ds1 was given a huge dose of paracetamol 2 hours after the previous one ! :shock:

I find Herman, that although we tell patients to administer with regular intervals between ....in practice I'm sure most parents don't...especially with penicillin which we might give at midnight in the hospital, but once the parents are home, they're not going to wake up little johnnie in the middle of the night , are they ? and does it make a huge difference if it is an hour off the time prescribed ? I can't say we see children back in with infections and you know what some parents are like.....the medicine probably ferments in the back of the fridge from one day to the next !
hermanmunster
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Location: The Seaside

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by hermanmunster »

agreed - I am interested when I right up drug charts in a hospital with much older patients that I can no longer right up ANYTHING to be given regularly between 2200 and 0800, fair enough they need their sleep and it is often the overall daily dose that counts for antibiotics rather than the intervals (obviously not the same with some other meds).

Re antibiotics - promise I will not get on the soap box, but they are rarely indicated these days.. Just reading the current stuff on tonsillitis - only real reason is if they fall ibnto one of these categories...(from CKS/NIHCE):

Prescribe an antibiotic for:
Those with features of marked systemic upset.
Those at increase risk of serious complications.
Those with valvular heart disease.
Have a low threshold for prescribing an antibiotic in people:
With an increased risk of severe infection (e.g. diabetes or immunocompromised).
Who are at risk of immunosuppression (e.g. on disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs [DMARDs], carbimazole).
With a history of rheumatic fever.


Very rarely see any of those .. :roll: - also - actual advised dose of penicillin is four times daily for TEN days ... otherwise the streptococcus is not cleared - I wonder how many people do actually take it for 10 days??
tiredmum
Posts: 1161
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:51 am

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by tiredmum »

blessedmum wrote:younger dd has tonsillitis, she is fine in her self and running every where, no temperature, no headaches nothing. Dr says she's ok to go to school.
I used to get tonsillitis as a child and young adult, your dd is lucky not to have a temperature, i always got one and its a very painful illness for some. It is contagious so perhaps its best that your dd has been off for a few days. :)
Snowdrops
Posts: 4667
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:20 pm

Re: Schools administering medicine to kids

Post by Snowdrops »

As I posted on the thread yesterday (re: school receptionists) the school secretary at dd's primary school was fantastic with my dd and her ear problems. DD rarely experienced any pain throughout all the years she's suffered with her condition (8 years and counting now!) but when she did, the secretary was quite happy to administer a paracetamol, cut off the unravelling cotton wool stuffing or stick on a plaster to cuts and grazes. No doubt there were other things she did for other children along the way.

My point is, mostly it's down to someone wanting to accept the responsibility for it. This in turn leads us to the blame culture and compensation claims.

How I long for good old fashioned sense - and luckily some of us still have it!
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