Medication Errors Claim Compensation in the UK

What Are Medication Errors?

Medication errors are seemingly preventable errors/events in the treatment process that cause harm to or can potentially harm a patient. Though preventable, these errors are known to affect hundreds of millions of patients globally, each year.

Medication errors can take place either under the care of your General Practitioner or a hospital. They generally happen if:

• Your doctor has written out an inappropriate or wrong prescription
• Your doctor has administered the wrong drug before a procedure
• Your doctor has administered a wrong dose, wrong frequency or wrong route of drug administration
• Your doctor has failed to alter therapy when required
• A pharmacy has dispensed the wrong drug or wrong formulation.

Prescription/medication errors are very serious. If you have been prescribed the wrong medication it could make your condition worse. Also, you may suffer side effects which you were not made aware of.

Medication errors can happen to adults and children. However, more care is needed with children. Pharmacists and medical professionals must consider a child’s weight and age before prescribing drugs but unfortunately this is not always the case.

Knowledge-based errors

These are errors that occur as a result of lack of knowledge. This is a common error in an instance where a health care provider is not well informed about drugs being prescribed or the patient to whom the drug is being prescribed to for. For instance, a patient given a particular prescription without establishing whether or not the patient is allergic to such drugs.

Rule-based errors – These errors are typical when healthcare providers apply bad rules to medication and/or misapply appropriate rules. For example, giving an injection to a patient in the wrong route.

Action-based errors – These are otherwise known as slips. They occur as a result of mistaken actions or slips in attention. For example picking a bottle of drug from the pharmacy shelf, different from what you intended to pick.

Memory-based errors – These errors occur when a general practitioner, nurse or pharmacist’s memory fails them. For example when they are aware of a patient’s condition but forget and prescribe a drug that may result in cases like allergic reactions or worse.

How do medication errors happen?

Medication errors can happen to anyone at anytime and in any place. This may include your own home and at the doctor’s office, hospital, pharmacy and senior living facility.

And when it comes to medication errors, kids are especially at high risk. This is because they typically need different drug doses than adults and when their doses are incorrectly administered, it may lead to life-changing events.

The level of knowledge is crucial as a means to reducing the chances of medication errors. The most common causes of medication errors are:

• Poor communication between your doctors
• Poor communication between you and your doctors
• Drug names that sound alike and medications that look alike
• Medical abbreviations
• Wrong drug label

Are Medication Errors Common?

Medication errors in the UK are becoming increasingly common. In fact, Research has shown that more than 237 million medication errors are made all acrosse care process every year in England, contributing to the loss of an estimated 1700 lives annually.

As we continue to witness medical advances and breakthroughs in medicine, the number of medication options available to medical professionals increases. Quite unfortunately, this creates room for more mistakes being made. Take for instance, if a patient is prescribed a large amount of medication, the chances of a mistake are likely to increase.

Also, as the number of medication options increase, the level of knowledge of medical professionals possess may decrease. It is obvious that if there are more options for a doctor to know about, there is a higher chance a mistake may be made.

What Are The Effects of Medication Errors ?

Medication / prescription errors can leave patients with short term health injuries or can have long term consequences such as a permanent disability or even death.

When a medication error is identified, it is crucial that you act fast. Try to attend a local health provider for advice as soon as possible. The effect of medication errors can be very serious but if you take quick action the effects might be reduced.

Classification of Medication Errors

Medication errors are quite broad in scope. Classifying them gives a clearer description and understanding of the concept. While there are different approaches to classifying medication errors, here, we classify medication errors invoking psychological theory under the following categories:

• Knowledge-based errors
• Rule-based errors
• Action-based errors
• Memory-based errors

Prescribing errors - what are they?

As the name implies, these are errors that occur as a result of failure to prescribe correctly or prescribing wrongly. These errors occur as a result of inappropriate prescribing, ineffective prescribing, underprescribing, overprescribing and correctly written prescriptions..

Inappropriate prescribing

Inappropriate prescribing could lead to very daring consequences in a patient's life including adverse drug reaction (ADR). Simply put, when inappropriate prescriptions are made, the risks outweigh the benefits of the medication. Doctors who lack a significant understanding of the relation between the pathophysiology of patient's problem and the effects of the drugs are most likely to commit these prescribing faults.

Ineffective prescribing

Ineffective prescribing occurs when a doctor prescribes a drug/medication that is ineffective. The medication prescribed here is neither effective for the indication in general nor for the patient.

Underprescribing

This is a failure to prescribe drugs/medication that are appropriate, or the prescription of very low dosage of appropriate drugs. The resulting condition here could be further deterioration of patient's health and certain unwanted effects

Overprescribing

Overprescribing is simply prescribing an extremely high dosage increased frequency of medication or unnecessarily longer period of medication. For example, dosage that leads to overuse of antibiotics

How Can We Help With Your Medication errors Claim?

Our medical negligence claim solicitors are specialists in claims relating to medication errors. They have a great deal of experience handling medical negligence cases and you can rest assured that if you speak to one of our solicitors today, you will receive expert advice.

From the moment you contact us, we will critically investigate your claim to understand if you have a valid means for such claims. If we are confident that you should proceed further, you will be advised. and we will move on to raise your legal claim and represent you in court if need be.

In most cases, your healthcare provider is contacted, and investigations are made into how and why you have suffered unnecessary pain and suffering.

If you need urgent advice on your situation, our medical negligence claim solicitors are always on hand to help you. They will provide you with a free assessment of your claims and give you all the information you need to make an informed decision.

Making Medication Errors Compensation Claim

Medication errors and incorrect drug treatments can have a debilitating impact on a person’s life. If you or your loved ones have had to suffer the consequences of medication or prescribing errors, you may be entitled to a claim for compensation.

Our team of medical negligence experts can help you understand your legal options to achieve the best possible outcome. Your compensation claims ensure you are financially equipped to enjoy a better quality of life.

For a successful medication errors claim, we will need to be able to prove that:

• There was indeed a medication error
• The medication error caused an injury or some harm that would not otherwise have occurred

It would interest you to know that our medical negligence lawyers will provide you with a no-obligation assessment of your claim. What this means is that your compensation claims are carried out on a No Win, No Fee basis. Feel free to contact us anytime.

What compensation can I expect to receive for my claim for medication errors?

For any form of medication errors in the UK, you may be able to claim medical negligence compensation for such errors. Whether it is a wrong prescription, an overdose, an underdose, or worst case scenario where medication errors results in unexpected death, you are entitled to receive a compensation.

However compensation differs based on how significant or severe an injury is. In this regard, our medical negligence experts use a medical negligence claim calculator to give you an estimated value of your claim. With that you can have an idea of the amount of compensation you may be entitled to, as well as determine if the claim is worth pursuing.

Feel free to contact us today to discuss your claim.

What is the cost of medication errors claim?

Here at nhsnegligenceclaim.com, you are only required to pay our fees if you have successfully received a compensation claim for medication errors. Our services are provided on a ‘no win, no fee‘ basis.

For successful claims, you will be charged a small percentage of your total compensation award to cover the costs of the investigation and the legal work performed. For unsuccessful claims, you will not be obligated to pay any fees.