Add a medical need for a pupil

Written for: All school and alternative provision staff.

The Medical Needs page lists every pupil with a recorded medical condition, allergy or care note. How a new medical need gets there depends on your setting. In most schools, medical conditions come from your MIS, so you add them there. In alternative provision settings, you can also record the provision’s own medical guidance in Student Radar.

To read the medical needs already recorded for a class, see Check medical needs and allergies for your class.

In most schools: add it to your MIS

Medical conditions shown on Medical Needs are copied from your school’s MIS, such as Arbor or SIMS. You can’t add or change them in Student Radar, so the MIS stays the one place they’re kept.

1. Ask whoever keeps medical records in your MIS, such as the office or your medical lead, to add the condition there.
2. After the next MIS sync, the condition appears on Medical Needs and on the pupil’s profile under Health.
3. To check it has arrived, open Health, then Medical Needs, choose Medical Needs, find the pupil and click View details. Recorded conditions shows each condition, where it came from and when it was last synced.

If the pupil also needs a care plan, medication held in school or an allergy record, add those on their own pages under Health, such as IHCPs, Medications and Allergy Register. See Add a medication and its schedule.

Record a follow-up

Some roles, such as medical leads, SENCos, safeguarding leads and office managers, see Update action on each pupil’s row. Use it to record that you’ve reviewed the pupil’s medical guidance, or that something needs following up:

1. Click Update action on the pupil’s row.
2. Choose the Action state and, if there’s a deadline, a due date.
3. In Action note, say what needs to happen next.
4. Click Save action, or click Create task to add an owned task to My Actions.

A routine note doesn’t count as a review. Only a saved action marked as reviewed does.

In alternative provision settings: add a medical need

In an alternative provision setting, you can record medical guidance alongside the records imported from the pupil’s school. Imported records stay read-only.

1. In the sidebar, open Health, then Medical Needs, and choose Medical Needs.
2. Click Add medical need.
3. In Find pupil, type at least two letters of the pupil’s name, then choose them from Pupil. Up to 10 matches are shown, so type more of the name if you can’t see them.
4. Enter the Condition name.
5. Choose the Severity: Not recorded, Low, Medium or High.
6. Add a Description (optional) and Medical notes (optional), such as what staff should do.
7. If you know when the condition started, choose a Start date (optional).
8. Click Save medical need.

The pupil’s row on Medical Needs shows the new condition. You can also add a medical need from the pupil’s profile: open the Health section and click Add medical need. The pupil is already chosen.

To change a condition your setting recorded, click Edit next to its name. Conditions imported from the pupil’s school don’t have an Edit button.

Notes

• Who can add: this depends on your setting’s access settings. If you can’t add a medical need, ask your setting’s Student Radar administrator.
• Supply staff: supply staff can’t add or edit medical needs.
• Leaving without saving: if you close the form with unsaved changes, Student Radar asks whether to discard them. Click Keep editing to go back.
• Tour: click Take a tour on the Medical Needs page for a guide to reading the list.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
There’s no Add medical need button	Your setting’s conditions come from its MIS. Ask whoever keeps medical records in the MIS to add it.
“Conditions are read-only for your current access. Condition editing requires authorised access in an active AP school.”	Your account can’t add medical needs here. Ask your setting’s Student Radar administrator.
“Enter at least two characters to find a pupil.”	Keep typing the pupil’s name.
“Search is limited to 10 matches. Refine the search.”	Type more of the pupil’s name.
“You do not have permission to edit this pupil’s medical needs.”	You can’t record medical needs for this pupil. Ask your setting’s medical lead.
“Check the condition name, severity, notes and date before saving.”	Correct the details and click Save medical need again.
“This condition changed while you were editing. Reload the current record before saving.”	Click Reload current record, make your change again and save.
“The condition could not be saved. Your changes are still here; try again.”	Wait a moment and click Save medical need again.