Community pharmacists may soon be able to supply salbutamol inhalers to schools if MHRA proposals are successful.

An MHRA consultation, which launched on Tuesday (May 6), proposed changes to UK medicines regulations to allow schools to keep a spare inhaler for use in emergencies.

Current regulations do not allow schools to receive or supply prescription-only medicines, but the MHRA wanted schools to have the option of giving children access to a salbutamol inhaler and spacer if they had already been prescribed a reliever inhaler.

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	If the regulations were changed, community pharmacists could occasionally supply "small quantities" of emergency inhalers to schools on a non-profit basis, the Department of Health (DH) said in draft guidance to accompany the MHRA's consultation.

Schools that wanted to use an emergency inhaler would have to follow guidelines for its supply, storage and disposal by appropriately trained staff, the DH said. A register of children diagnosed with asthma and a record of the inhaler's use would also need to be kept by each school, it added.

The MHRA's Commission on Human Medicines had already recommended that the regulations be amended, after it had assessed the risks and benefits. Allowing access could reduce "deaths and distress" with a "minimal risk" of the inhalers being used unnecessarily, the medicines watchdog stressed.

"Inhalers and spacers cost just a few pounds and could be supplied direct to schools by suppliers once permitted by legislation," the MHRA said.

In 2012, the Department of Education spoke to teachers and parents about holding inhalers in schools and found them "almost unanimously in favour", the MHRA said.

Although children should take their own inhaler into school, an Asthma UK survey revealed that 64 per cent of children had been without an inhaler in school at some point, the MHRA said. Approximately 20 school children die in England and Wales each year from asthma, with most deaths occurring before the child reached hospital, it added.

The consultation, which is available online, closes on May 30.

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