What schools need to know about the new allergy safety requirements – and how better incident reporting can help
For families of children with severe allergies, school should be a safe place, but when an allergic reaction occurs, having the right policies and procedures in place can make all the difference.
That is the driving force behind Benedict’s Law, new measures designed to strengthen allergy safety in schools across England.
Named in memory of Benedict Blythe, who tragically died from an allergic reaction at school, the new requirements are intended to give schools a consistent framework for preventing allergic reactions, responding to emergencies and learning from incidents when things go wrong.
From September 2026, schools will need to have clear allergy safety arrangements in place, including an allergy safety policy, appropriate staff training, individual healthcare plans and processes for recording and learning from serious incidents and near misses.
For schools, this is about more than simply having a policy in a folder, it is about making sure that the right information is readily available and that lessons are captured when something goes wrong.
What is Benedict’s Law?
Benedict’s Law is the name commonly used for the new statutory approach to allergy safety in schools in England.
The Department for Education published its Allergy safety in schools statutory guidance in July 2026. The guidance sets out what schools must do to support pupils with allergies and provides practical templates and examples to help schools put the necessary arrangements in place.
The requirements include:
- Having and publishing a whole-school allergy safety policy
- Providing allergy awareness and emergency response training for staff
- Identifying pupils who require Individual Healthcare Plans (IHPs)
- Ensuring appropriate arrangements are in place for emergency medication, including spare adrenaline auto-injectors
- Recording serious allergy incidents and near misses
- Reviewing incidents and using them to identify lessons and improve practice.
The aim is straightforward: to make schools safer for children and young people living with allergies, while giving staff the knowledge, confidence and systems they need to respond effectively.
It’s not just about what happens during an emergency
When we think about allergy safety, it is natural to focus on the immediate response – recognising symptoms, administering adrenaline and calling for emergency assistance.
But effective allergy management also depends on what happens after an incident. If a pupil experiences an allergic reaction, or a near miss occurs where an allergen could have been given to the wrong child, there is valuable information that needs to be captured.
- What happened?
- Where did it happen?
- What food or allergen was involved?
- How did the allergen exposure occur?
- Were existing controls followed?
- Were staff aware of the pupil’s allergy?
- Was the relevant healthcare plan available?
- What action was taken?
- And, perhaps most importantly, what can be changed to prevent it happening again?
Good incident reporting turns an isolated event into an opportunity to improve the systems and controls that protect pupils.
Making incident reporting work harder for schools
Many schools already have processes for reporting accidents and incidents. However, a generic incident form may not capture the specific information needed when the incident involves food, allergens or a potential allergic reaction.
That doesn’t necessarily mean introducing another standalone system. Instead, existing incident reporting processes can be adapted to ask the right questions depending on the type of incident being reported.
For example, an allergy or food-related incident report could capture information about:
- The food or product involved
- The allergen or suspected allergen
- The pupil or person affected
- Where and when the incident occurred
- Whether the incident was an actual exposure or a near miss
- How the food was prepared, supplied or served
- Whether allergen information was available
- What immediate action was taken
- Whether medication or emergency treatment was required
- Whether parents, carers or emergency services were contacted
- Any witnesses
- Contributing factors or failures in existing controls
- Corrective actions required
- Lessons learned and actions to prevent recurrence.
Having this information recorded consistently makes it much easier for schools to identify patterns and address weaknesses in their processes.
One system, multiple food-related incidents
Allergy incidents are not the only food-related events that schools may need to manage.
Schools and education organisations may also need to record reports of alleged food poisoning, foreign objects in food, contamination, food preparation issues or other concerns relating to food safety.
Rather than creating separate processes for every scenario, an incident management system can be configured to ask different questions depending on the type of incident.
This gives staff a straightforward way to report what has happened, while giving management teams the information they need to investigate, assign actions and identify trends.
It also creates a much clearer audit trail. Instead of information being spread across emails, spreadsheets, paper forms and individual records, incidents can be brought together in one place.
From reporting to learning
One of the most important aspects of the new allergy safety guidance is the emphasis on learning from serious incidents and near misses.
A report should therefore be more than a record of what happened and help an organisation answer:
- What happened?
- Why did it happen?
- What could have prevented it?
- What are we going to do differently?
- Has that action been completed?
This is where digital incident management can provide real value.
Once an incident has been recorded, actions can be assigned to the appropriate person, monitored through to completion and reviewed as part of the organisation’s wider safety management processes.
Over time, the data can also help schools and education organisations spot recurring issues – whether that is a particular type of allergen exposure, a problem with communication, an issue around lunchtime arrangements or a weakness in existing procedures.
That visibility can help organisations move from reacting to incidents to proactively managing risk.
How Prime Systems can help
At Prime Systems, we already provide clients with food-related incident reporting as part of our accident and incident management software.
Our systems can be configured to capture information about a wide range of incidents, including allergen exposure, suspected food poisoning and foreign objects in food.
This means clients can build reporting processes around the risks that are relevant to their organisation, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all incident form.
Additional questions can be built into an incident report to gather the information needed for investigation, follow-up and learning. Actions can then be tracked, giving management teams a clearer view of what happened, what needs to change and whether those changes have been implemented.
For schools and education organisations preparing for the new allergy safety requirements, this provides a practical way to strengthen an existing part of their safety management process.
The technology doesn’t replace good policies, staff training or effective allergy management. Instead, it supports them by making sure that when something happens, the organisation can record it, understand it, act on it and learn from it.
Compliance meets confidence
Benedict’s Law represents an important step forward in allergy safety in schools, but compliance shouldn’t simply mean having another policy document in place.
Real preparedness comes from making sure that policies, people, procedures and systems work together. That includes having a clear process for reporting incidents and near misses, capturing the right information, following up on actions and using what has been learned to strengthen controls.
At Prime Systems, we’re helping organisations use their existing incident management processes to do exactly that – bringing food, allergen and other incidents into a structured reporting system that supports better decision-making and continuous improvement.
If you’re reviewing your incident reporting processes as part of your preparation for Benedict’s Law, let’s talk about how Prime Systems could help you capture the information you need and turn incident data into meaningful action.
Benedict’s Law at a glance
What is it?
Benedict’s Law is the name commonly used for new measures strengthening allergy safety requirements in schools in England.
Why was it introduced?
The measures follow campaigning for stronger protections after the tragic death of Benedict Blythe, who died following an allergic reaction at school.
Who does it apply to?
The current statutory guidance applies to maintained schools, academies, free schools, alternative provision academies and pupil referral units in England. The government also intends to introduce relevant requirements for independent schools through regulatory standards.
When does it take effect?
The new statutory allergy safety guidance was published in July 2026 and applies from September 2026.
What does it require?
Schools need an allergy safety policy, staff training, appropriate individual healthcare plans, arrangements for emergency medication and processes for recording and learning from serious incidents and near misses.
How can incident reporting help?
A well-designed reporting process can capture the detail of allergy incidents and near misses, support investigations, track corrective actions and help schools identify recurring risks and improve their controls.
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