Benedict’s Law: What Schools Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions and Allergies Need to Know

Benedict’s Law: What Schools Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions and Allergies Need to Know

If your school supports pupils with allergies or other medical conditions, it is important to review your policies, staff training, and emergency planning. Benedict’s Law has brought renewed attention to allergy safety in schools, and the upcoming statutory guidance on Supporting Children and Young People with Medical Conditions and Allergies is expected to strengthen how schools plan for and respond to pupils’ health needs.

What is Benedict’s Law?

Benedict’s Law is the name now used for strengthened protections around allergy safety in schools. It grew out of a campaign following the death of Benedict Blythe, with the aim of making sure schools have clearer policies, better training, and stronger emergency arrangements for pupils with allergies.

Benedict’s Law is not a separate legal code by itself. Instead, it is the campaign and policy driver behind the allergy‑safety requirements now being built into the wider statutory framework for schools.

How Benedict’s Law links to the new statutory guidance

The Department for Education is currently consulting on updated statutory guidance called Supporting Children and Young People with Medical Conditions and Allergies. This draft replaces the 2015 guidance and is expected to be published in summer 2026, with a likely expectation that it will come into force in September 2026.

Benedict’s Law is effectively the allergy‑safety strand of this guidance. While the wider document covers all medical conditions — including asthma, epilepsy, and diabetes — the allergy section reflects the core aims of Benedict’s Law:

A separate, published allergy safety policy.
Mandatory allergy awareness training for all staff.
Clear arrangements for spare adrenaline auto‑injectors (AAIs) and access.
Improved incident recording and learning.

Schools should therefore read Benedict’s Law and the draft guidance together:

Benedict’s Law focuses on allergy safety and accountability.
The new statutory guidance sets out the detailed expectations for how schools must support pupils with medical conditions across the board.

Why allergy safety and medical conditions matter in schools

Children with allergies and other medical conditions rely on clear, consistent systems to stay safe during the school day. That includes the classroom, the playground, the dining hall, and school trips.

Good planning helps staff respond quickly and confidently, reduces the risk of confusion in an emergency, and supports better communication between school, families, and health professionals. This is especially important where a child may need emergency treatment for an allergy, seizure, asthma attack, or another health‑related issue.

What the draft guidance is likely to expect

The draft Supporting Children and Young People with Medical Conditions and Allergies guidance is likely to place stronger expectations on schools in areas such as:

A clear, published medical conditions policy.
A separate allergy safety policy, usually with named senior leadership and governor responsibility.
Individual Healthcare Plans (IHPs) for pupils who need them.
Whole‑school staff training (including allergy awareness and basic medical‑conditions knowledge).
Better recording and review of incidents and near misses.
Stronger leadership and governor oversight.

Even if the wording changes slightly before final publication, these are widely regarded as good‑practice expectations for schools in England.

What good training looks like

Effective training should be practical, relevant, and easy to apply in real life.

For allergy awareness, training should help staff:

Recognise the signs of an allergic reaction.
Understand when anaphylaxis may be present.
Know how to escalate concerns.
Locate emergency medication (e.g., adrenaline auto‑injectors).
Follow the pupil’s individual plan.
Reduce everyday risks, including cross‑contamination.

For broader medical conditions awareness, staff should also understand how conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, and diabetes may affect pupils during the school day, and how to support them in the classroom and on trips.

Training should be refreshed annually and built into the school calendar, not treated as a one‑off tick‑box activity.

What emergency drills should include

To make allergy and medical conditions training stick, schools should include simple, realistic emergency drills as part of their wider approach.

An effective emergency drill is not a test, but a practice run that helps staff:

Recognise the early signs of an allergic reaction or other medical emergency.
Know who to alert first (e.g., first aider, medical lead, site manager).
Locate and administer emergency medication such as adrenaline auto‑injectors quickly and safely.
Follow the pupil’s Individual Healthcare Plan and Allergy Action Plan.
Communicate clearly with paramedics or emergency services if they are called.

Drills can be short and low‑pressure:

A classroom‑based scenario, run during a staff meeting or training session.
A brief “what‑if” exercise on the playground or in the dining hall.
A scheduled practice using a mock adrenaline auto‑injector or training device.

The key is that drills:

Involve the right staff (including mid‑day supervisors, caterers, and site staff, not just teachers).
Are repeated at regular intervals.
Are reviewed afterwards so staff can ask questions and the school can improve procedures.

When drills are built into your training and policy, they help turn guidance and paperwork into muscle memory — so staff know what to do when a real emergency happens.

Individual Healthcare Plans

Individual Healthcare Plans (IHPs) are likely to remain central to good practice.

These plans help staff understand:

What the pupil’s needs are.
What support should be provided.
What to do in an emergency.

They should be created in partnership with families and relevant health professionals, and they should be reviewed whenever the pupil’s needs change. IHPs sit alongside the school’s wider medical conditions and allergy safety policies, turning general guidance into practical, person‑centred action.

How to prepare your school

A phased approach can make the process manageable as the new guidance takes shape.

Review current medical conditions and allergy safety policies.
Identify pupils with medical conditions or allergies.
Create or update Individual Healthcare Plans where needed.
Review staff training and identify any gaps.
Check emergency arrangements, including AAIs, their location, and expiry dates.
Include regular emergency drills involving all relevant staff.
Improve incident recording and learning routines.
Build annual review into the school calendar.
Keep communication with families and health professionals strong and ongoing.

These steps help schools prepare for the likely September 2026 expectations and strengthen pupil safety now, regardless of any small wording changes in the final guidance.

How Teach Health can help

If your school is looking for allergy awareness or medical conditions training, it helps to choose sessions that are practical, clear, and suitable for all staff roles.

At Teach Health, we provide live training designed for school teams, helping staff build confidence and understand their responsibilities in a real‑world setting. Our training supports whole‑school approaches to allergy safety and medical conditions and is aligned with current best practice.

For further details, please visit www.teachhealth.co.uk, contact us via email at info@teachhealth.co.uk, or call us at 020 87206635.

About the author

This article was written by the clinical team at Teach Health, specialists in training schools to manage pupils with medical conditions and allergies.

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this article, the author does not accept liability for any inaccuracies or for actions taken based on this information.