Mr Adrian Sanders – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Adrian Sanders on 2014-03-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken since 2010 to ensure that (a) primary and (b) secondary schools are equipped to support children with diabetes.

David Laws

Schools are already required to support children with long-term medical conditions such as diabetes. Non-statutory guidance, “Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years Settings”, is available to schools to help them manage medicines and support children with medical needs such as diabetes.

From September 2014, there will be a new duty, which was introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014, on governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies to make arrangements to support pupils at school with medical conditions and to have regard to statutory guidance. The guidance, upon which we have consulted publicly, will set out the requirements on schools to support children with medical conditions, which we would expect them to apply to conditions like diabetes.