Guest Post: Meeting the Medical Needs of under 5s in Birmingham
By Chris Rumney RN RSCN
Paediatric Nurse Educator, BCHC+ Medical Needs Training Service
*The following guest post represents the author’s personal view and does not necessarily represent the view of the Birmingham Early Years Networks (BEYN) as a whole. Any issues or questions arising from the content of this post should, therefore, be directed to the author and not BEYN.
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The Medical Needs in Early Years Service provides essential training for staff working in early years settings.
The service supports the early years sector to meet the needs of children with common chronic medical conditions, as well as meeting the statutory requirements of the EYFS 2021:
3.46: “Providers must have and implement a policy, and procedures, for administering medicines. It must include systems for obtaining information about a child’s needs for medicines, and for keeping this information up to date. Training must be provided for staff where the administration of medicine requires medical or technical knowledge.”
Who offers Medical Needs Training?
Essential Medical Needs in Early Years training is available on a chargeable basis from Birmingham Community Healthcare Plus (BCHC+) the traded service programme provided by Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC).
Training is provided by experienced NHS nurses employed by BCHC, who have an extensive background in delivering training to a variety of settings.
What training courses are available?
Training can be purchased by all early years and childcare settings.
Medical Needs Training will help to ensure that staff who attend are able to respond safely and effectively should a child in their care experience a medical emergency arising from one of the following conditions:
Asthma: This session covers basic awareness training regarding the condition, its triggers, and treatment of an asthma attack. It includes the management of medication, use of care plans consent for administration, storage, documentation, and use of reliever inhalers & spacer devices.
Allergies* (including EpiPen/Jext): This session includes basic awareness training regarding the condition, and how to treat both mild & severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis). Also covered are the management of medication, use of allergy action plans, consent for administration, documentation, storage, and use of the emergency adrenaline auto-injectors.
Epilepsy: This session offers basic awareness training regarding the condition and the management of seizures. Practitioners will also be trained in the management of medication, the use of care plans, consent, and documentation.
Buccal Midazolam* (Buccolam) Administration: In order to book this session, trainees must have accessed recent Epilepsy training. The session covers the administration of emergency rescue medication (Buccolam), including the use of care plans, consent, documentation, and the safe storage of medication.
Eczema: This session consists of basic awareness training regarding the condition and the treatments required including the application of creams. Also covered is consent for applications and documentation.
Diabetes: Included in this session is basic awareness of Type 1 Diabetes, the signs and symptoms, treatments, safe storage of medication, and use of care plans.
Medication Administration: This session includes the storage of medication, consent, administration, routes of administration, disposal of medications, and documentation.
Advice and Support: We can offer one-to-one guidance and support on any issues related to Medical Needs for your setting. Please contact us to discuss your specific requirements.
*Training includes a practical element
How often should we undertake training?
To ensure that education and early years staff maintain these essential skills and are kept up to date with the latest practice including relevant medication alerts and learning from local & national incidents, settings are strongly advised that medical needs training for all staff should be updated annually.
Delivery of training
Whole staff, face-to-face training is our preferred option of training delivery as it is easier to demonstrate medical devices such as adrenaline auto-injectors and questions can be answered more clearly.
However, it is recognised that on occasions it may be more convenient for staff to receive training virtually via Teams or Zoom and this can also be accommodated.
Up to 20 staff can be trained at any one time; smaller settings with fewer than 6 staff or larger settings with more than 20 staff can also be accommodated – please get in contact with us to discuss your needs.
What does it cost?
BCHC+ Medical Needs Training price list 2022/23
Each training topic requires up to 1 hour to deliver, except combined Epilepsy and Buccolam which will require 90 minutes
Prices include travel within the Birmingham Local Authority area
The above prices apply when the required number of topics are provided in a single visit
Training scheduled during the evenings costs a little more because it is more expensive for us to arrange and supervise staff at these times
If you would like to discuss one-to-one ‘Advice & Support’ visits, please contact us directly to confirm requirements and charges
How to book training
Please contact Gareth Humpage, Office Administrator, BCHC+ Team Office to discuss your training requirements.
You can call us on 0121 466 6266 or email us at bchc.bchcplus@nhs.net
If you have a question we have not anticipated please contact Gareth and we will do our best to answer and respond.
Keep up to date
Download the latest Early Years Medical Needs Newsletter for up-to-date information:
*click the image to download the October 2022 newsletter