Schools Allergy Register Platform

The Allergy Team supports families, schools and businesses to manage allergies. Its founder, Sarah Knight, has two sons with serious food allergies and is motivated by personal experience to drive change.

Allergic disease is the most common chronic medical condition in childhood, affecting 1 to 2 pupils in every class and yet leading allergists say the UK "lags behind" other countries regarding allergy management, putting pupils at risk of fatal reactions. In recent years at least 4 children have lost their lives at school to an allergic reaction and our survey of allergy parents found 58% of their children had experienced one or more allergic reaction or 'near-miss' at school, often within the first couple of years of being there. In a separate study one third of teachers said they had not had any allergy or anaphylaxis training and 40% said they don't feel confident or prepared to manage an allergic reaction.

It is a bleak picture that we are determined to change. We recently launched the Schools Allergy Code and Schools Allergy Register. Described as a "game-changer" by educators and allergy families the Schools Allergy Code sets out best practice for managing allergies in schools and has been recommended by the Department for Education. We've developed a package of support to help schools implement it and raise standards which they receive when applying to join the Schools Allergy Register. The package includes allergy training for staff, support developing an allergy policy and its implementation, templates documents and guides, access to regular Q&As with allergy experts and ongoing mentoring. Once assessed as adhering to best practice they receive a trust mark and are added to the Schools Allergy Register.

The DfE's promotion, media coverage, positive feedback from clinicians and eager uptake from school staff means that supporting and assessing so many settings has become a huge task. Innovate UK support will enable us to streamline the process by building an innovative, interactive platform, using AI to support information and document exchange, editing and evaluation. It will be a centralised portal for training and resources tailored to different types of schools to ensure robust allergy management. We will then pilot this platform Our hope is the platform will reduce the time-burden on schools, boost efficiency, improve assessment rigour and enable more schools to join, keeping pupils safer, increase pupil inclusion and boost staff and parent confidence.