Posted By Adams777 Contrary to NHS guidelines which state that in an emergency anyone - including people without training - can administer an Epipen for the purpose of saving a life do the HSE say that first aiders should only administer an Epipen if they are trained to do so? Adam

Posted By LMR I have an epi-pen and am told to self administer. If i am incapable I am told to advise someone else to assist... Personally .... if i can burble i have it in my bag and rip the packing off and tell you jab it in my thigh hard and count to 10 I would not care who did it ... in those circumstances it is a life saver. I have taken the step of advising my first aiders at work where it is and how to and have accepted that this is my own risk. Other advice is to when calling ambulance inform them that you have a casualty with epi-pen and they will talk you through how to administer. It all works but to prevaricate as to who, how and why is very distressing whilst the casualty is loosing the ability to live!

Posted By Jay Joshi There is legal exemption for parenteral administration in an emergency to human beings of certain prescription only medicines via Regulation 7 of the The Prescription Only Medicines (Human Use) Order 1997 Refer to:- http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/71830--b.htm#7 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/19971830.htm

Posted By Lwood My daughter has carried an Epipen for years and thankfully her level of allergic reaction has now diminished. However, I had the great advantage of being the H&S parent governor at all her schools from infant to 6th form and went into the school to help them with the 'Care Plan' for dealing with allergic reactions for all the children. The pens have a finite life and what we used to do is to take a bag of oranges and the spare pens and once a year run a training session for the teachers and teaching assistants. Both I and my daughter standing there demonstrating the how and why, gave all the staff the confidence to come up and try stabbing an orange! Thankfully, they only ever had to do it from my daughter once, but they did do it several times for others and it all went well. The current thinking in schools is that the school nurse would help the school produce a Care Plan for at risk students and if this is not happening in a school it should be raised ASAP. This practice of having a Care Plan I took into industry and I have instigated as a means of helping our staff and in particular our first aiders by having a formal process to deal with issues such as allergies, diabetes, sickle cell and other such issues. Its a process I can recommend. L