There have been far too many high profile allergy fatality cases in recent years, including numerous child fatalities whilst at school. The use of adrenalin auto-injector pens / epi pens has thus far been a contentious issue, however new legislation recently passed could hopefully be one step towards stopping these terrible incidents. 
With 17% of child allergy fatalities occurring whilst at school, this new legislation allows schools to order and store spare adrenaline auto-injectors in case a child needs an extra dose or when existing injectors fail or can’t be located.
In conjunction with this new legislation, the Department of Health has also issued new guidance to schools on how to use the injectors.
For more information and the Department of Healths guidance please click here and here.
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In our last newsletter we highlighted a case of a lady in Scotland taking legal action against a restaurant following an anaphylactic shock from unknowingly eating peanuts. In the news this month we have seen another family taking direct legal, this time under Disability Discrimination legislation. A mother with two severely allergic children took a discrimination case against an Ulster hospital after she claimed they failed to make a reasonable adjustment to keep her daughters safe. The case came about after signs in a waiting room asking people not to eat and drink were removed and as a result her daughter experienced an allergic reaction by simply being in the room when people ate. To find out more about this story please click here.
