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Benedict Blythe was just five when he sadly suffered the reaction while at Barnack School near Peterborough in 2021. Helen Blythe then established the Benedict Blythe Foundation in memory of her son following an outpouring of support she received when posting news of the tragedy on social media. She posted a picture of Benedict on X, formerly known as Twitter, and said: “This is my son, Benedict.

He died yesterday, suddenly, aged 5.” The post amassed 700,000 likes and 30,000 messages, with hundreds of parents reaching out to share similar experiences. Helen Blythe said allergy management in schools has become a postcode lottery.



(Image: Lucy Glen) She said: "Off the back of the post we started to get messages from families who popped up on Twitter and Facebook to share their own experiences. "While people were sharing these stories with us because we would understand, we came to a point where we knew we had an opportunity to make real change." Helen explains that since establishing the Foundation, parents from across the country have been in contact to describe instances of children with food allergies being put at risk by schools.

According to research carried out by the Benedict Blythe Foundation in partnership with The Institute of Clever Stuff, allergy management varies across schools. It revealed that half of the 2,198 schools analysed did not have life-saving medication on site and close to a quarter did not provide training on allergy symptoms and what to do in an .

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