UK medicines regulator opens consultation on schools keeping adrenaline nasal sprays

The U.K. medicines regulator has opened a consultation on whether schools should be allowed to buy and keep spare adrenaline nasal sprays for emergencies, in a proposed legal change aimed at widening the options available for treating severe allergic reactions.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, said Monday that it has launched a U.K.-wide consultation, published Oct. 19, on amending the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. The proposal would allow schools to obtain and hold adrenaline nasal sprays alongside adrenaline auto-injectors, or AAIs, which schools have been able to stock as spare emergency supplies since 2017. The consultation is being carried out jointly with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland and runs for eight weeks, from Oct. 19 to Dec. 14.

If the law is changed, schools could choose to stock AAIs, adrenaline nasal sprays or both. The same safeguards that already apply to spare AAIs would remain in place: any school-held supply could be used only for pupils known to be at risk of anaphylaxis, the severe and potentially life-threatening allergic reaction, and would be administered by appropriately trained school staff.

The consultation does not change the law now. Instead, it asks whether the existing legal exemption for spare AAIs should be extended to cover nasal sprays, following the arrival of newly authorized needle-free products in the U.K.

The issue matters because allergic emergencies are not rare in schools. According to the MHRA, around 8% of children and young people in the U.K. have a food allergy, and around 20% of serious allergic reactions to food happen in a school setting.

The MHRA said the proposed amendment is intended to make sure legislation “keeps pace with clinical developments” after it authorized an adrenaline nasal spray in the U.K. The regulator approved the first U.K. needle-free adrenaline nasal spray, EURneffy, on July 18, 2025, for the emergency treatment of anaphylaxis. It approved a lower-dose version for younger children on June 12, 2026.

That means the consultation is less about introducing an entirely new school safety framework than about broadening one that already exists. Schools have had a legal route to buy and keep spare adrenaline auto-injectors since 2017; the MHRA is now asking whether that same model should also apply to nasal sprays. The move also comes amid wider efforts to tighten allergy preparedness in schools, after the Department for Education published statutory allergy safety guidance for schools in England in July.

“Ensuring children and young people with allergies have access to medicines in an emergency situation is vital,” Julian Beach, the MHRA’s executive director of operations, said in a statement. “Adrenaline nasal sprays would provide an additional treatment option for children at risk of anaphylaxis — a serious and life-threatening condition.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said the organization welcomed the chance to respond but stressed that any change would need to be workable in practice. “It’s important that any proposals are safe, practical and properly supported, with clear guidance and training for school staff,” he said.

The consultation closes Dec. 14. The MHRA said it wants views from teachers, health care professionals, parents, carers and people at risk of anaphylaxis before deciding whether to press ahead with the proposed change to medicines law.