Prescribed Medicines
Medicines should only be taken in school when essential; that is where it would be detrimental to a child’s health if the medicine was not administered during the school day. Meadowbank only accepts medicines that have been prescribed by a doctor, dentist, nurse prescriber or pharmacist prescriber. Medicines must always be provided in the original container as dispensed by a pharmacist and include the prescriber’s instructions for administration.
We never accept medicines that have been taken out of the container as originally dispensed nor make changes to dosages on parental instructions.
Where clinically appropriate, medicines should be prescribed in dose frequencies which enable it to be taken outside school hours. We ask parents to ask the prescriber about this. It is to be noted that medicines that need to be taken three times a day could be taken in the morning, after school hours and at bedtime.
The Medicines Standard of the National Service Framework (NSF) for Children recommends that a range of options are explored including: Prescribers consider the use of medicines which need to be administered only once or twice a day (where appropriate) for children and young people so that they can be taken outside school hours. Prescribers consider providing two prescriptions, where appropriate and practicable, for a child’s medicine: one for home and one for use in the school or setting, avoiding the need for repackaging or relabelling of medicines by parents.
