Education policy and procedures register > Health and safety > HLS-PR-009: Administration of Routine and Emergency Medication in Schools >

Definitions

Medical practitioner
A doctor registered under the Medical Board of Queensland or who is registered with a Medical Board in another state or territory to practise medicine in Australia. The development of any health plan in a school setting should be signed off by a medical practitioner.

Qualified health practitioner
A health professional with the skills and knowledge to assess, plan and evaluate care. This can be the student's medical practitioner or specialist doctor, a registered nurse (either a Department of Education and Training funded Registered Nurse or any registered nurse) and credentialed diabetes educator and allied health professional, such as Education Queensland speech therapists. Qualified health practitioners are registered with the relevant professional board, which is part of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme .

Prescribing health practitioner
A health professional who has completed the appropriate training, giving them the authority to prescribe certain medications under the Health (Drugs and Poisons) Regulation 1996 (Qld) (new window) e.g. medical practitioner, nurse practitioner, dentist.

Prescription medication
Medications prescribed by a medical practitioner or a prescribing health practitioner under the Health (Drugs and Poisons) Regulation, are dispensed by a pharmacist and do not include complementary medicines. It is often difficult for parents/carers to obtain a separate written authority from their medical practitioner to give to the school, as the pharmacist and the doctor recognise that the doctor's prescription is the legal written authority required. Therefore, the presentation of the original medication container with an attached prescription pharmacy label constitutes a medical authority.

Over-the-counter medication (OTC)
Medications are for self-treatment and can be purchased from pharmacies, with selected products also available in supermarkets, health food stores and other retailers. Examples include cough and cold remedies, anti-fungal treatments, non-prescription analgesics such as aspirin and paracetamol.

Complementary medicines, also known as traditional or alternative medicines, include herbal, aromatherapy and homoeopathic preparations, vitamins and minerals and nutritional supplements such as fish oil. Complementary medicines can be purchased at a number of retail venues, including pharmacies or provided by naturopaths.

Pharmacist-only medication
Medications that are only be dispensed by a pharmacist or by a person authorised by the pharmacist, and include liquid anti-histamines, some anti-inflammatory preparations and preparations that contain pseudoephedrine.

A pharmacist or a person authorised by the pharmacist will establish the therapeutic need for the medicine and will place the name of the person for whom the medicine is intended on the container.

Routine medication
Medication required regularly for maintenance of a specific health condition (e.g. medication to treat cystic fibrosis).

Emergency Medication
Medication required for the emergency first-aid treatment of medical conditions (e.g. Midazolam for specific seizures, adrenaline auto-injectors for anaphylaxis, blue reliever for asthma).

Schedule 8 drugs
Medicinal products likely to cause dependence or be abused and include controlled substances such as Ritalin and Dexamphetamine.

Routes of administration

Topical: substance applied directly on the skin or area directed by the prescribing health professional via a cream, ointment, skin patch, ear/eye drops, inhalations
oral: given via the mouth i.e. swallowed, placed under the tongue in the form of a tablet or liquid, or given via nasogastric tubes and gastrostomy routes
intramuscular injection: an injection given into a muscle, usually the outer mid thigh, such as an adrenaline auto-injector
subcutaneous injection: an injection given under the skin into an area advised by the prescribing health professional, such as insulin
rectally: such as suppositories or enemas.

Medication error
Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or harm to a patient. Medication errors occur for a variety of reasons, for example, miscommunication of drug orders, poor handwriting, confusion between drugs with similar names, poor packaging design, and confusion of metric or other dosing units.

A medication error includes any failure to administer medication as prescribed for a particular student, including:

failure to administer the medication
failure to administer the right medication
failure to administer the right medication to the right student
failure to administer medication within appropriate time frames
failure to administer the right medication in the correct dosage
failure to administer the right medication by the correct route.

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