Medway Community Healthcare (MCH) provides a wide range of high quality community health services for Medway residents; from health visitors and district nurses to speech and language therapists and out of hours urgent care.
Published on: 30 October 2023
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As you may be aware there is a national supply disruption of some types of ADHD medication. Please see the published patient safety alert for detailed information.
CAS-ViewAlert (mhra.gov.uk)
The disruption is due to a combination of manufacturing issues and increased global demand. Supply of the above products are not expected to be restored until various times between October and December 2023. Other strengths are not expected to be able to support excessive increased demand. This may have an impact upon a number of the young people in your care. The following information will help you support young people and their families while they wait for the medication disruption to be resolved. We would ask that schools:
Our specialist children’s ADHD providers have provided some useful information below:
Strategies for Schools The information below may help develop strategies to support your staff and children at this time. However, please remember that there is not a ‘one size fits all solution’ and that all neurodiverse children and young people will have varied and differing support needs at different points in their life. Strategies implemented should be personalised to the individual child or young person.
Please educate staff and students at school about neurodiversity using neuro-affirmative language and approaches.
Students with ADHD may require reasonable adjustments to support them to be able to access the school environment (please discuss and liaise with parents and the young person about this).
The ADHD Foundation has collated a comprehensive set of resources tailored towards supporting children and young people with ADHD. We’d like to draw particular attention to their Teaching and Managing Students with ADHD resource.
Additionally, please see the following advice:
To support access to learning
To support at unstructured times
To support understanding of new situations
To accommodate sensory differences
Advice for Meltdowns A meltdown is an intense response to an overwhelming situation. It happens when someone becomes completely overwhelmed by their current situation and temporarily loses behavioural control. A young person may have a meltdown if they feel overwhelmed. A meltdown is not a choice and children are not in control of their behaviour during a meltdown. A meltdown is not the same as a tantrum. It is not bad or naughty behaviour.
Preventing sensory meltdowns before they start: While certainly not all meltdowns can be prevented, there are things you can do to reduce the intensity and frequency of them.
They may benefit from implementing deep pressure activities throughout the day (every 2 hours). This could be helping move furniture, handing out water bottles/recourses, carrying folders to another class or wearing a weighted ruck sack.
How to respond to a meltdown
You can find further guidance on implementing robust and targeted support packages, and the responsibilities of partners working with children with ADHD here:
Signposting for children and young people, and their families Children, young people and their families may be feeling overwhelmed and uncertain at this time. If families are concerned, please signpost them to:
Advice on medication We recognise that this is a worrying situation, but a temporary pause in medication is not physically harmful despite it being impactful in other ways. Patients on guanfacine should NOT stop suddenly (due to rebound hypertension) and will need to seek medical advice from specialists for alternatives.