Benedict’s Law: New Mandatory Allergy Requirements for Schools
The government has now concluded the long-awaited results of its consultation, ‘Supporting pupils with medical conditions at school’ and published the new statutory guidance, ‘Allergy Safety in Schools’.
The campaign that has led to this law being put in place has been driven by the family of Benedict Blythe. Benedict was five years old when he tragically died from anaphylaxis at school in 2021, after mistakenly being given cow’s milk.
Following the inquest into Benedict’s death and years of campaigning by his family, the Government has now published this new mandatory guidance.
Benedict’s Law will implement new allergy safety requirements for schools in England from September 2026 as follows:
- Have a whole-school allergy policy
- Provide allergy awareness training for all staff
- Stock spare adrenaline auto-injectors (AAIs) for emergency use for any child or adult experiencing symptoms of anaphylaxis
- Put Individual Healthcare Plans (IHPs) in place for pupils with allergies.
In this article, we break down the new guidance into its key sections, helping you clearly understand what is required of your school or education setting to ensure your staff are confident, informed and, most importantly, compliant by the end of the Autumn Term 2026.
Who is This Guidance For?
This statutory guidance applies to the following education providers:
- Governing bodies of maintained schools, including special schools but excluding maintained nursery schools
- Management committees of PRUs
- Proprietors of academies, including free schools and alternative provision academies (but excluding 16–19 academies).
Allergy Safety in Schools: Policy Break Down
Dedicated Whole-school Allergy Safety Policy
This policy must include a named senior leader that is responsible for the policy, which should be reviewed and published at least annually.
In the allergy safety policy, you must include:
- How the school, college or setting will identify children and young people with allergies and minimise the risks of exposure to known allergens, including managing the risk of food allergy.
- How staff will be trained in allergy awareness and emergency response; how individuals at risk of anaphylaxis will have access to their prescribed adrenaline devices, alongside “spare” adrenaline devices.
- How children and young people with allergies will be able to participate in visits and trips.
- How Individual Healthcare Plans will capture specific arrangements (including any Allergy Action Plan and/or Asthma Plan).
- How the wellbeing and inclusion of children and young people with allergies will be promoted.
Allergy Awareness Training for all Staff
In your whole-school allergen policy, you should include the arrangements that are in place for whole-school allergy awareness training. This means that all school staff should receive regular allergy awareness training, at least annually. Allergy awareness training should be completed by all school staff, this includes:
- Permanent staff
- Temporary staff
- Supply teachers
- Peripatetic staff
- Agency workers
- Regular volunteers
- Catering staff and others who may oversee children and young people at breakfast or after school clubs.
- School cleaners and caretakers.
Training under this guidance should be understood as allergy awareness and emergency response training. It should be completed in addition to standard first aid training.
To ensure your school is compliant with the new government statutory guidance on allergy safety in schools, we provide the following courses:
NYES Catering: Understanding Food Allergens
- This course provides schools with support and advice on the legislation requirements regarding food allergens for your schools’ settings.
NYES Learning & Development Solutions: Anaphylaxis Management
- This training provides staff with the essential knowledge and confidence to recognise, respond to, and manage anaphylaxis, how to identify symptoms, how to use auto-injectors effectively, and how to implement safe allergy management procedures within their setting.
In addition to the above courses, we strongly advise ensuring all staff have completed their Food Safety Awareness Training. This course will provide you with an understanding in the basic requirements of food safety and hygiene in your school settings.
Our teams are working to understand the guidance in more detail and should our training offer develop in future we will of course keep you updated.
To find these courses on our website, please select NYES Training and search for the relevant course. You can then book onto your preferred date.
Remember: Implementation is from 1st September 2026 and all schools in England MUST be compliant by the end of the Autumn Term 2026.
Individual Healthcare Plans (IHPs) for Pupils with Allergies.
Any child or young person whose allergy will require the school, college or early years setting to put supportive arrangements in place should have them captured through an Individual Healthcare Plan.
Spare Adrenaline Auto-injectors (AAIs) for Emergency Use for any Child or Adult Experiencing Symptoms of Anaphylaxis.
The allergy safety policy should set out how the school, college or setting will ensure that children and young people who are prescribed AALs have rapid access to their devices at all times.
In addition, you should ensure your medical conditions policy includes:
- Arrangements for the storage and use of “spare” AALs which can be used in an emergency for the treatment of anaphylaxis (see below).
- Arrangements for disposing of AALs safely when they have been used, following requirements for the safe disposal of medicines (noting that AAIs include needles).
To book anaphylaxis training for schools, please book the following course: NYES Learning & Development Solutions: Anaphylaxis Management.
NYES Training: Here to Help
In addition to this article, please ensure you have thoroughly read through the newly published government policy, Allergy safety in schools: Statutory guidance for governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies in England
Our teams are here to help, if you would like to book training through NYES please select NYES Training and search for the relevant course. You can then book onto your preferred date.
Alternately, you can speak to your school Relationship Manager, who can guide you to the correct training you require.