Legal Update: In a Nutshell - Support for pupils with medical conditions

The Department for Education is holding a consultation on draft statutory guidance relating to the new legal duty to support children with medical conditions in schools in England, due to come into force in September.

This new legal duty - contained in the Children and Families Bill - will require school governing bodies to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions and, in doing so, to have regard to the related statutory guidance.

The introduction of this statutory duty follows a successful campaign by the Health Conditions in Schools Alliance, a group of 35 charities, which maintains that the current voluntary approach to supporting pupils with medical conditions "does not go far enough".

Who is the statutory guidance aimed at?

The guidance is a mixture of statutory guidance and non-statutory advice. All governing bodies of maintained schools (excluding maintained nursery schools), proprietors of academies (including free schools but excluding 16 to 19 academies) and management committees of pupil referral units, must have regard to the guidance when carrying out their statutory duty. The non-statutory advice is aimed at all other persons or bodies who may have a role in supporting pupils at school with medical conditions, such as teachers, parents, healthcare providers and pupils.

The duty and related statutory guidance would apply in conjunction with the duties of governing bodies under the Equality Act 2010 in respect of pupils with disabilities, and the duties of such bodies under the code of practice relating to children with special educational needs.

What are the key features of the statutory guidance?

The crux of the legal duty is to ensure that children with medical needs can access and enjoy the same opportunities at school as any other child. To best accommodate such children, the guidance provides that governing bodies must ensure that arrangements are put in place in schools to support the medical needs of individual pupils, as not all children with the same medical condition have the same needs.

Integral to this is the requirement for governing bodies to ensure that schools develop and implement policies for supporting children with medical conditions. Such policies should include details of the roles and responsibilities of the persons involved in supporting such children, the training they require, procedures for managing medicines, emergency procedures and unacceptable practices. These policies should also cover the role of individual healthcare plans, which would be developed by parents, school staff, the pupil and relevant healthcare professionals in order to cater for the medical needs of the particular child. Where a pupil is competent to manage their own health needs and medicines, arrangements for them to do so should be incorporated into the policy. Both the policies and individual healthcare plans would be subject to regular review.

The consultation runs until 14 March.

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