The Paediatric Allergy Group (PAG) has updated its Allergy Action Plans for children at risk of anaphylaxis. These plans have been designed to facilitate first aid treatment of anaphylaxis, to be delivered by people without any special medical training nor equipment apart from access to an adrenaline autoinjector (AAI).
The updated plans are designed to function as Individual Healthcare Plans for children with food allergies, providing medical and parental consent for schools to administer medicines in the event of an allergic reaction. This includes consent to administer a “spare” back-up adrenaline auto-injector pen which schools are able to purchase under changes to the Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2017, with effect from 1 October 2017.
Click here to access the Department of Health guidance on the use of AAIs in schools www.sparepensinschools.uk.
The action plans have been developed following an extensive consultation period with health professionals, support organisations, parents of food-allergic children and teachers.
The plans are medical documents and should be completed by a child’s health professional (and not by parents or teachers, for example). Please read the instructions for completing carefully, the plans can be downloaded through a link at the bottom of the page.
The plans can be completed in 2 ways:
1. Print a hard copy and complete by hand
2. Complete online (or as a download) and then print a hard copy. Online completion allows the form to be tailored to the individual patient more easily. The plans can also be saved (to keep patient details typed into the text fields you need to “save as” and save to document with a new filename).
There are 3 plans available, for both manual completion or electronically:
If completing electronically, the plan can be tailored to your patient:
• Enter patient name and date of birth. Please note that DOB must be entered in the format DD-MM-YYYY.
• Enter allergens to which the patient is allergic
• Select the appropriate dose of Cetirizine. Other antihistamines can be entered manually if desired
• For plans recommending the use of adrenaline auto-injector, select dose from the drop-down menu
• Under ‘Additional Instructions’, there are drop-down menus to select “Give salbutamol” and/or enter additional information.
• Sign and date the plan. The signature can be done electronically
• Parent/Guardian details can also be entered electronically if this is desired.
NB: Pending on your software you should be able to save the Plans as a JPEG which means the information you add on the plan cannot be changed. Alternatively you could download and then save the Plan in WORD from the PDF. To be able to do this select the form and then add this to your clipboard by pressing ‘yes’ to agree to copy to clipboard and paste and save into WORD.
We have also produced a one-page Medical authorisation to carry AAI on-board aeroplanes, to facilitate this form of travel. We suggest this can be printed on the REVERSE of the Allergy Action Plan if needed.
1. BSACI Allergy Action Plans can be used for children with food and insect allergies.
2. BSACI Allergy Action Plans include instructions on how to use an adrenaline autoinjector (AAI) and should always be stored with the device.
3. AAIs contain a fixed dose of adrenaline and are designed to be used by anyone (medical training is not required), including friends, teacher, childcare worker, parents or patients (if they are old and well enough).
4. BSACI Allergy Action Plans should be reviewed when patients are reassessed by their doctor, and each time they obtain a new AAI prescription. If there are no changes in diagnosis or management the medical information on the Action Plan may not need to be updated. However, if the patient is a child, the photo should be updated each time, so they can be easily identified.