Children and Young People with Medical Needs

The SEND Code of Practice 2015 says:

Schools have a notional SEN budget and many schools will commission services (such as speech and language therapy, pastoral care and counselling services) to support pupils...The school’s governing body must ensure that arrangements are in place in schools to support pupils at school with medical conditions and should ensure that school leaders consult health and social care professionals, pupils and parents to make sure that the needs of children with medical conditions are effectively supported.

 

(3.66)

Colleges...

...should ensure they have access to external specialist services and expertise. These can include, for example, educational psychologists, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), specialist teachers and support services, supported employment services and therapists.

 

(7.23)

If your child is too sick to go to school, your local authority will look to provide them with as normal an education as an illness allows.

This may mean, for example, arranging access to home teaching, a hospital school or hospital teaching service or an integrated hospital/home education service.

Local authorities should have a senior officer in charge of overseeing the arrangements. They should also have a written policy setting out how they will go about meeting their responsibilities.

The local authority is responsible for ensuring that pupils:

• are not at home without access to education for more than 15 working days
• have access to education from the start, if it’s clear that they will be away from school for long and recurring periods
• receive an education of similar quality to that available in school
• get their minimum entitlement of five hours teaching per week if they’re educated at home because of illness, as long as their health permits it

Under section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014, schools, Academies and PRUs “must make arrangements for supporting pupils at the school with medical conditions”. This duty is owed by the “appropriate authority” which is either the governing body (of a maintained school) or the proprietor (if it is an Academy).

The Government has published statutory guidance called “Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions” to explain to schools, parents and carers how this duty should be carried out.