Health care at school.

Sometimes a student also needs support from healthcare. For example, because they are chronically ill or have a disability. Medical actions or personal care are needed during school hours. For example, giving medicine, tube feeding, or helping to go to the toilet. Organizing this care is mainly a responsibility of the parents. Providing care is not a task of the school. A teacher or a school is not required to perform medical actions or personal care and may refuse to do so. However, the school must investigate for each student, together with the parents, how care during school hours can be arranged best. Think about when care must happen, who should do it, and where it can be done.

Medical actions

Some giving of medicine or other care counts as medical action. Think, for example, of tube feeding or giving an injection. Who is allowed to do medical actions is set by the law BIG (Individual Healthcare Professions Act). A teacher is normally not allowed to do these actions. A teacher can become allowed if a fully qualified doctor finds that the teacher is able. The doctor then gives the teacher instructions and a written signed statement. Keep in mind that a teacher may refuse to carry out medical actions if they do not feel capable, even if the school made agreements with parents.

Every school has a protocol for medical actions. It explains the school’s rules and how they handle medical actions. Ask the school for this protocol.

Funding care at school

How care at school is funded depends on the care your child gets and their indication.

• If your child has a long-term care indication (Wet langdurige zorg), then care at school is paid for by this law. This can include guidance, care, and nursing. The care office coordinates this with care providers.
• If your child does not have a long-term care indication, funding depends on the care your child needs:
  Guidance and daily care at school: Youth Act. Guidance and daily care are the municipality’s responsibility, also during school time. This is in the Youth Act. If the guidance is given as care in kind or personal budget (pgb) it depends who pays. In care in kind the municipality pays the care provider who works at school. With personal budget, the parents get money from the municipality and pay the helper who supports the child at school.
  Nursing and personal care at school: Health Insurance Act. Nursing and related personal care during education are covered by health insurance. Parents make agreements about this with the school. This also applies to combined intensive nursing, care, and guidance (formerly intensive child care).

Make agreements

If a student needs healthcare during school time, it is important for parents, student, and school to make agreements. This gives clarity for everyone when care agreements are fixed. It is best to do this in a meeting at the start of each school year. Teachers and/or the involved care professional can join. The care needed and the classroom situation decide what care is required and who can give it best.

It is important to coordinate care well between home and school. For example, in the form of an educational care arrangement. This can also be discussed in the meeting. Sometimes it is useful to involve the municipality, care office, or the organization that provides care in the meeting.

Help and support

Organizing care in the classroom can be difficult in practice. There can also be questions about funding. For more information, contact our information point at 088-6050101 or vraag@oudersonderwijs.nl.

Zorgeloos naar school offers more information and useful materials to make agreements about care and support with the school.

For more help with organizing care, educational care consultants are available. Our information point can offer more information about this.