Medication records in school

The rule: section 100 and the written record

The duty starts in section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014: “The appropriate authority for a school to which this section applies must make arrangements for supporting pupils at the school with medical conditions”, and “must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State.” It applies to maintained schools, academies, alternative provision academies and pupil referral units in England, but not to a pupil who is a young child under Part 3 of the Childcare Act 2006: pupils in nursery and reception, until the 1 September after their fifth birthday, follow the early years framework.

The guidance is the DfE's Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions (December 2015). Its paragraph 22 is the record-keeping rule: “Governing bodies should ensure that written records are kept of all medicines administered to children.” Paragraph 19 sets the condition for giving prescription medicines: “Staff must not give prescription medicines or undertake healthcare procedures without appropriate training”. Administering medicines is not part of teachers' professional duties: the guidance's advice on the role of school staff says any member of staff may be asked to support pupils with medical conditions, including by administering medicines, “although they cannot be required to do so”, so the record also shows which trained member of staff took it on.

The 2015 guidance is still the current version. The DfE consulted on a replacement from 5 March to 15 May 2026, and its government response says: “The Supporting pupils with medical conditions at school remains in force and we will update it in due course. The related Allergy in schools guidance is available now.”

That allergy guidance came with a new statutory duty. Since 1 September 2026, section 100A of the Children and Families Act 2014, inserted by section 34 of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, has required maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to include an allergy safety policy in their medical conditions arrangements, review it at least once every year and publish it on the school's website, with the DfE's statutory guidance Allergy safety in schools (July 2026) setting out how. The guidance, written before the duty commenced, says the Government “intends” to introduce the review and website duties through regulations; the Act already imposes them. The guidance says a named member of the senior leadership team should have responsibility for allergy safety; a statutory duty to name one is still only intended.

Read the 2015 guidance carefully: “This document contains both statutory guidance and non-statutory advice. The non-statutory advice is presented in text boxes.” Paragraph 22 is statutory. Most of the detail schools copy into their policies, including what each entry should say and the controlled-drug count, sits in the boxes of advice.

What the medication record should show, and the consent behind it

The advice box after paragraph 21 says schools “should keep a record of all medicines administered to individual children, stating what, how and how much was administered, when and by whom. Any side effects of the medication to be administered at school should be noted in school”. The box after paragraph 22 explains why: “Records offer protection to staff and children and provide evidence that agreed procedures have been followed. Parents should be informed if their child has been unwell at school.”

The DfE's templates for supporting pupils with medical conditions are “provided as an aid to schools and their use is entirely voluntary.” Two are medicine records:

• Template C, record of medicine administered to an individual child: the name and strength of the medicine, the quantity received, the expiry date, the dose and frequency, then a line for each dose given, with a parent's signature on the form.
• Template D, record of medicine administered to all children: date, child's name, time, name of medicine, dose given, any reactions, signature of staff and printed name.

Neither template, nor any DfE source, asks for a witness signature; a school can choose two-person checks for some medicines, but should not describe them as a DfE requirement.

Consent comes before the first dose. The non-statutory advice says “no child under 16 should be given prescription or non-prescription medicines without their parent's written consent – except in exceptional circumstances where the medicine has been prescribed to the child without the knowledge of the parents”, and that a child under 16 should never be given medicine containing aspirin unless prescribed by a doctor. It also advises schools to accept prescribed medicines only if they are in date, labelled and in the original container as dispensed by a pharmacist, with instructions for administration, dosage and storage; insulin must still be in date, but will generally come in a pen or pump rather than its original container. Keep the signed consent form with the record of prescribed medication. The same advice says staff should give medicines “in accordance with the prescriber's instructions”, so record each change of dose against the prescriber's new instruction in writing, such as a relabelled medicine, as well as the parent's written consent, not against a remembered conversation.

Individual healthcare plans and the allergy record

An individual healthcare plan (IHP) is where the school records what a pupil with a medical condition needs, and the medication record should match it. Paragraph 14 of the 2015 guidance says that when deciding what an IHP should record, the governing body should consider, among other points:

• “the medical condition, its triggers, signs, symptoms and treatments”
• the pupil's needs, including medication (dose, side effects and storage), and any other treatments or environmental factors
• specific support for the pupil's educational, social and emotional needs, such as how absences will be managed
• the level of support needed, including in emergencies, and whether the pupil manages their own medication
• who will provide the support, and who in the school needs to know
• the written permission from parents and the headteacher for medication to be given by staff or self-administered
• arrangements for school trips and other activities outside the timetable
• what to do in an emergency, including whom to contact

The guidance expects IHPs to be drawn up with the parents, the pupil where appropriate and a healthcare professional, and reviewed at least annually or sooner when the pupil's needs change. Not every pupil taking a medicine needs one. With the allergy guidance, the DfE published a new IHP template and an allergy safety policy template on the Allergy safety in schools page.

The allergy guidance adds a register: “The school, college or setting should keep a record of all individuals with allergy, including whether children and young people have Individual Healthcare Plans and/or an Allergy Action Plan.” That list, the IHPs and the medication record are three views of the same pupils, and a review should check that they agree.

Controlled drugs, spare inhalers and spare adrenaline devices

Controlled drugs. The 2015 advice says controlled drugs should be stored securely and “should be easily accessible in an emergency. A record should be kept of any doses used and the amount of the controlled drug held”.

Spare salbutamol inhalers. The Department of Health's Guidance on the use of emergency salbutamol inhalers in schools (March 2015) explains that from 1 October 2014 the Human Medicines (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2014 “allow schools to buy salbutamol inhalers, without a prescription, for use in emergencies.” The exemption in Schedule 17 to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 covers a pupil “known to suffer from asthma”, and the guidance limits use to children whose parents have given written consent, kept on a register. It asks for a checklist of inhalers “identified by their batch number and expiry date, with monthly checks recorded”, and a record of each use: “where and when the attack took place (e.g. PE lesson, playground, classroom), how much medication was given, and by whom.” “The child's parents must be informed in writing so that this information can also be passed onto the child's GP.”

Spare adrenaline devices. Since 1 October 2017 schools have been able to buy spare adrenaline auto-injectors without a prescription. The July 2026 allergy guidance says the regulations permit spare devices to be used for the purpose of saving a life, for example for a child presenting for the first time with anaphylaxis, and that “The Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2017 do not require consent to have been obtained for “spare” adrenaline devices to be used in an emergency.” That is the guidance's reading: Schedule 17 still refers to a pupil “known to be at risk of anaphylaxis”, and the general life-saving route is regulation 238 of the 2012 Regulations. The guidance also says “We expect that all schools will stock “spare” adrenaline devices of the correct dosage for their pupils”, and that the Government intends to make stocking a statutory duty “through forthcoming Regulations”. The 2017 Guidance on the use of adrenaline auto-injectors in schools sets the record of each use: “Where and when the REACTION took place (e.g. PE lesson, playground, classroom). How much medication was given, and by whom.”

Incidents and near misses. The allergy guidance says any serious incident or near miss involving a pupil, member of staff or visitor with a medical condition or allergy “is recorded as soon as is feasible. The incident should be recorded in the Accident book”, setting out who was affected, what happened, when and where, why, how staff responded and how it concluded, and that parents of a child aged up to sixteen should be told as soon as possible. Our school accident book guide covers the book itself.

Nursery classes, independent schools and the rest of the UK

Nursery and reception-age pupils. A school's early years pupils follow the EYFS statutory framework for group and school-based providers, which uses “must” where the DfE's school guidance says “should”. Paragraph 3.61 requires “a policy, and procedures, for administering medicines to children”, and paragraph 3.62 says: “Medicine (both prescription and non-prescription) must only be administered to a child where written permission for that particular medicine has been obtained from the child's parent and/or carer. Providers must keep a written record each time a medicine is administered to a child and inform the child's parents and/or carers on the same day the medicine has been taken, or as soon as reasonably practicable.” The childminders' framework has the same rule at paragraph 3.61.

Independent and non-maintained special schools. Section 100 and the allergy policy duty do not yet apply. The allergy guidance says the Government intends to introduce equivalent requirements through the relevant regulatory standards, and gives no date. The allergy guidance is also not statutory for local-authority-maintained nursery schools or 16 to 19 academies, and says early years settings and further education colleges are not permitted to stock spare adrenaline devices in this way.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Section 100 and the DfE guidance are for England; each nation has its own guidance on medicines in schools. The spare inhaler and adrenaline permissions in the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 apply across the UK, but follow your own nation's guidance on using them.

Retention. No DfE source sets a period for keeping medication records. Set one in the school's retention schedule, with the IHP and consent kept alongside the doses they authorised; our record keeping in schools guide covers the schedule. Medicines information is health data, special category data under the UK GDPR, so access should be limited to the staff who need it.

The instruction that arrives by message

The dose is written in the medicines record. The instructions around it rarely are. A parent messages the class teacher at 07:40 to say the paediatrician has doubled the evening dose and the lunchtime one now stops. A trip leader texts the office from a field that a pupil's inhaler is empty and asks whether the spare can be used. After an allergic reaction at lunch, the follow-up runs through a thread of messages between the office, the first aider, the headteacher and the parent.

Each of those messages is part of the evidence the 2015 advice says records provide: that agreed procedures were followed and that parents were told. A changed instruction that sits in a teacher's personal messages may never reach the IHP or the record, and if a dose is ever questioned, the school cannot show when it knew.

ComplyChat is not a medicines record, a MAR or eMAR system, or a place to keep IHPs, and it should not be used as one. It gives staff and parents a channel the school runs: parents join with a mobile number verified by SMS, everyone added is told the channel is on the record, and messages are recorded on the server as they are sent. On paid plans, once the school's Microsoft 365 tenant is connected, the lasting record files into the school's own Microsoft 365 under its retention rules, so the parent's message changing a dose is kept with the school's records rather than on one person's phone.

A question for the next governing board meeting: when a parent changes a pupil's medication instructions by text, how does that change reach the IHP and the medication record, and could the school show when it arrived?

Questions people ask

What is the school policy on administering medication?

Every maintained school, academy and pupil referral unit in England must make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions under section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014, and the DfE's statutory guidance says its policy should be clear about the procedures for managing medicines and that written records should be kept of all medicines administered. Since 1 September 2026 those arrangements must also include an allergy safety policy, reviewed every year and published on the school's website, under section 100A.

Can you provide an example of a medication administration record?

The DfE publishes two voluntary templates: Template C, a record of medicine administered to an individual child, and Template D, a record of medicine administered to all children. Template D's columns are date, child's name, time, name of medicine, dose given, any reactions, signature of staff and printed name.

What should a school medication record include?

A school medication record should state what medicine was given, how, how much, when and by whom, with any side effects, as the DfE's non-statutory advice says. For a controlled drug it should also show the amount held, and for a spare inhaler or adrenaline device where and when the attack or reaction happened.

Is Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions still the latest version?

Yes: the December 2015 statutory guidance is still in force, and in July 2026 the DfE said it “remains in force and we will update it in due course”. Separate statutory guidance, Allergy safety in schools, was published in July 2026 and supports the allergy safety policy duty that applies from 1 September 2026.

What should an individual healthcare plan include?

An individual healthcare plan should record the medical condition, its triggers, signs, symptoms and treatments, the pupil's needs including medication, dose, side effects and storage, the support needed and who provides it, who needs to know, the written permission for medication, arrangements for trips, what to do in an emergency and support for the pupil's educational, social and emotional needs: these are among the points paragraph 14 of the DfE's 2015 guidance asks governing bodies to consider.

Do schools have to keep spare adrenaline pens?

Not yet by law. Since 1 October 2017 schools have been allowed to buy spare adrenaline auto-injectors without a prescription, and the July 2026 Allergy safety in schools guidance says the DfE expects all schools to stock spare devices of the correct dosage and intends to make it a statutory duty through forthcoming regulations. Early years settings and further education colleges are not permitted to stock spare devices in this way.

Official guidance and your next step

The law is section 100 and section 100A of the Children and Families Act 2014. The guidance is Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions with its templates, Allergy safety in schools with its IHP and policy templates, the emergency inhaler guidance and the adrenaline auto-injector guidance. Nursery classes should read section 3 of the EYFS framework. Quotations are from those pages as published on 8 October 2026.

This guide summarises law and guidance for schools in England. It is not legal or medical advice: a pupil's treatment is for their healthcare professionals.

Then do one thing: pick one pupil with an IHP and lay the plan, the parent's written consent and the last month of the medication record side by side. Any dose, timing or medicine that does not match across all three is where the process needs to change.