Lord Bassam of Brighton – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bassam of Brighton on 2014-05-06.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to review special educational needs assessments to ensure that the needs of neurofibromatosis sufferers are taken fully into account by education services; and if so, when.

Lord Nash

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

From September 2014, there will be a new duty, (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 proposed text of the guidance (upon which we have consulted publicly) is available on GOV.UK so that schools can prepare for implementation in the autumn term. It sets out the requirements on schools to support children with medical conditions, which we would expect them to apply to conditions like neurofibromatosis.