I am very happy to have that conversation with my hon. Friend.
Turning to the statutory duties on schools, hon. Members have called for voluntary guidance to be replaced with a funded mandatory requirement. We have heard from each Member who has spoken in this debate about the four things that they would like to see: an allergy policy in place; the co-creation of an individual healthcare plan with all pupils with allergies and anaphylaxis; spare adrenaline auto-injector pens in schools; and the training of school staff and teachers in allergy awareness and allergy first aid.
Let me start with the first of those points. Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a legal duty on schools to make arrangements to support pupils at their school with medical conditions. The accompanying statutory guidance from 2015—“Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions”—is not voluntary; governing bodies must have regard to that guidance when carrying out their section 100 duty. The guidance makes it clear that schools should ensure that they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and have policies and processes in place to ensure that those conditions, including allergies, can be well managed. The guidance is clear that policy should also include how the processes will be implemented, what should happen in an emergency situation and the role of individual healthcare plans in supporting pupils. It says that
“The school, healthcare professional and parent should agree, based on evidence, when a healthcare plan would be inappropriate or disproportionate”
and that the policy should also set out
“how staff will be supported in carrying out their role to support pupils”
including
“how training needs are assessed, and how…training will be commissioned and provided.”
It states that
“any member of school staff providing support to a pupil with medical needs should have received suitable training.”
Members also raised the important issue of adrenaline auto-injectors. The regulations already allow schools to obtain and hold injectors and, in an emergency, they can be administered to pupils the school knows have a risk of anaphylaxis but whose own devices are not available or not working, perhaps because they are broken or out of date. To support schools to meet the needs of pupils with allergies, the Department of Health and Social Care has produced guidance on the use of adrenaline auto-injectors and emergency inhalers in schools, including the purchase of spare adrenaline auto-injectors.