Our vision is that any parent, wherever they are, have information on their child’s medicines that they need and can trust.
If you are a parent or carer of a child who needs to take medicines – whether once every few years or every day – we know you need good quality and reliable information.
Read further to find out:
- about our leaflets and videos
- who endorses our information
- who produces our information
- Information Standard quality mark
- promoting Medicines for Children
- who we are.
About our leaflets and videos
Our medicines leaflets cover many of the medicines that are prescribed or recommended to children by children’s doctors (paediatricians), pharmacists or nurses.
They answer your questions, including: Why does your child need to take the medicine? When do you need to give the medicine? What if you forget to give the medicine, or give too much? Are there any possible side-effects (effects that we don’t want)
How to give different types of medicines
Medicines come in different forms. Your child’s medicine may be available as a tablet, capsule or liquid (to give using an oral syringe or medicine spoon). You may need to inject a medicine, use a suppository or enema (medicines in the bottom), or give medicine in the eye or ear.
Go to Types of medicines for our videos and leaflets showing you how to give medicines
Our general information leaflets give you tips about medicines, antibiotics and unlicensed medicines.
Medicines for Children leaflets have been endorsed by:
|Royal College of General Practitioners|
|Royal Pharmaceutical Society|
|Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales|
|Cardiff and Vale University Health Board|
Produced by experts in children’s medicines
Our information is produced by experts in children’s medicines – with real experience of the concerns and issues parents face when giving a child medicine at home.
Paediatricians (children’s doctors), pharmacists and other healthcare professionals, including nurses, write and review our leaflets. They make sure that the advice in our leaflets is up-to-date and accurate. With their experience in the clinic and understanding of children’s medicines, they advise on the medicines and topics we need to cover.
Parents and carers are the other experts in children’s medicines - they have been at the heart of this programme since the beginning. Through surveys and focus groups, parents and carers across the country told us what information they need to know about giving medicines to children, and how they wanted it. A panel now reviews every leaflet before it is published.
Thank you to all who volunteer their time to develop our information! Medicines for Children couldn’t exist without the knowledge and enthusiasm of our experts.
Accredited by the Information Standard since 2011
Medicines for Children leaflets carry The Information Standard kitemark to demonstrate that we provide reliable healthcare information for the public.*
The Information Standard is a certification scheme set up by the Department of Health, to help you identify trusted sources of health and social care information. To gain the Standard, we had to show that the way we produce our information meets the criteria of the Standard. There are five steps.
- stating our commitment to maintain and improve the way we produce our information
- making sure that all staff and volunteers involved know about the Information Standard
- describing how we produce our information, identify our users' needs and involve parents and carers
- checking our process so that we always meet the Standard's criteria
- taking action if we find any problems, and reviewing our leaflets so they are up-to-date
*Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health shall hold responsibility for the accuracy of the information they public and neither the Scheme Operator nor the Scheme Owner shall have any responsibility whatsoever for cost, losses or direct or indirect damages or cost arising from inaccuracy of information or omissions in information published on the website on behalf of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Promoting Medicines for Children
You may download the following materials to help promote this resource:
Who we are
Medicines for Children is a partnership of three organisations that work in child health - Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group (NPPG), and national child health charity WellChild.
The Joint RCPCH and NPPG Standing Committee on Medicines leads and provides clinical expertise on this project.