Current legislation mandates that UK schools must purchase spare, emergency asthma inhalers and adrenaline auto-injectors (AAIs/EpiPens) without a prescription to protect pupils during life-threatening medical emergencies. Under Benedict’s Law, schools are required to ensure these life-saving devices and trained staff are available.

 These medications have a shelf-life of approximately two years, meaning the cost reoccurs and as they are not prescribed medications their cost can be ten times that of an NHS prescription per item. Children are exempt from paying anything for NHS prescriptions. This instance should be no different.

However, there is currently no central funding allocated to cover these costs. Individual schools must fund these vital, life-saving medical supplies directly out of their already stretched educational budgets, or rely on parental donations. This creates a dangerous inequality where a child's safety during an anaphylactic shock or severe asthma attack could depend on their school's financial resources.

Emergency medical equipment in schools should be treated as an essential health provision, not an administrative cost. We call on the Government to centrally fund and distribute free, standardized emergency rescue kits—containing inhalers, spacers, and AAIs—to every state school to ensure no child is left unprotected.