Medical Negligence Solicitors

Prescription Error Compensation Claims

When a healthcare professional issues a prescription and the wrong medicine or dosage is given, it could have severe and far-reaching consequences for the patient. If you or a member of your family has suffered harm as a result of prescription error negligence, you may be able to claim compensation.

Prescription error negligence

When visiting a GP or another medical professional to collect medication, we put our trust in the person who is handling our prescription. We expect them to carry out the process safely and carefully.

Usually, we have no reason to question the product we have been given, the strength of the medication or the dose and we take the drugs according to the advice provided. We do this because we believe that we have been prescribed the right medicine and the dosage is correct. Unfortunately, however, prescription errors do happen.

If you or someone you care about has been given the wrong prescription, you might be able to seek compensation. At Been Let Down, we specialise in helping people pursue prescription error negligence claims.

Get in touch with us today and a member of our expert legal team will work with you to understand what happened and decide if we can investigate a compensation claim.

What are prescription errors?

Prescription errors happen when a medical professional or dispenser in a chemist makes a mistake when issuing medication to a patient. This could happen because the doctor has chosen the incorrect course of treatment, there is an issue with the prescription writing process or a pharmacist mistakenly picks the incorrect drug from the shelf.

The wrong prescription can lead to treatment not being timely or effective and also increase the risk of the medication causing harm to the patient.

Prescription errors are avoidable, however, and there are an estimated 237 million of these each year in the NHS in England with 66 million of which being “clinically significant”. Globally, these errors cost around $42 billion annually.

What are the different types of prescription errors?

If you are unsure if your experience is down to the wrong prescription being given, it is worth understanding the different types of prescription errors. These include:

The incorrect medication given to the patient for a condition they did not have
The incorrect dosage prescribed
The incorrect instructions given
Medication prescribed for a long period of time without review
More than one medication prescribed, which causes the treatments to either cancel each other out or interact and cause harm
A mix-up while a patient is in hospital or care home, leading to the patient receiving someone else’s medication
A patient given medication to which they are allergic

There are two moments in the process when the prescription error negligence can happen:

A doctor providing the wrong prescription

Whether you are visiting your GP or in hospital under the care of a consultant, if your doctor makes a mistake and gives the wrong drug for your condition, it can amount to clinical negligence. For example, they might give you a medication to which you are allergic or an incorrect dose.

This can cause your illness to get worse or for you to suffer a severe reaction. This might have a dramatic impact on your health or, in some extreme cases, the error could prove fatal.

Dispensary making an error

Your GP or medical practitioner might have acted correctly and made sure they prescribed the correct drug and dosage for your condition. But what if the dispensing chemist or healthcare professional in hospital makes a mistake? They might give you someone else’s prescription, use the wrong product, list the wrong quantity or put incorrect dosage instructions on the label. Again, any of these prescription errors can have severe health consequences.

Whether your GP gave you the wrong dosage or the dispenser at the pharmacy gave you incorrect instructions, talk to us and we will listen to you to find out if you could pursue a prescription error negligence claim.

Why make a compensation claim for prescription error negligence?

By making the mistakes outlined above, the medical professional or dispenser has put you at risk of pain and, potentially, ongoing medical complications. While giving the wrong prescription is not necessarily always detrimental to a patient’s health, there can be serious consequences and doctors and dispensers have a duty of care to you when they give you your medication.

In addition, there is the emotional toll of this type of error. You might feel that you cannot trust your doctor after what happened or that your mental well-being has been damaged by receiving the wrong treatment for something that was already impacting your health.

There is also the possibility that you have had to miss work as a result of what has happened, which might have left you feeling the effects financially.

If you have suffered from a prescription error, we want to support you and help you receive any compensation to which you might be entitled. We are here for you and will guide you through the claims process.

How do I make a wrong prescription claim?

If you have been let down by someone who should have known to give you the right prescription, then making a wrong prescription claim can allow you to move forward after what happened.

When you contact one of our prescription error claims experts, they will look at the details of your case. Their goal will be to prove that medical negligence occurred. This means you will be asked to give as much detailed information as possible about the medication you were given, the dosage and where the error occurred. We will also ask you about the impact of the wrong prescription on your health and the losses you have faced as a result.

By doing this, we can establish if you have a case and how much you might be able to claim for. If we think we can take on your claim, we will talk to you about what the next steps are and explain how the claims process works. We will also advise if you could claim compensation for lost earnings, travel expenses, treatment and physical or mental injury that you have suffered.

It does not matter if you are an NHS or private patient, either. Whatever the circumstances, we will work with you, taking you through every stage with care and support.

Why choose Been Let Down for my wrong prescription claim?

If you’re looking for advice from a skilled legal team that has experience in successfully bringing prescription error claims, talk to us and we will listen to you to find out if you could pursue a wrong prescription claim.

At Been Let Down we:

Operate as an independent firm with solicitors dedicated to working in your best interests, so you can feel fully supported along the way.
Are recommended by The Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.
Have specialists who are experienced in dealing with prescription error negligence
Are authorised and regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) which sets the professional standards to which solicitors in England and Wales need to adhere. We are also members of the Liverpool Law Society and The Law Society.
Can take your case on a No Win No Fee basis, which means you’ll have nothing to pay if your case is unsuccessful.
Are backed up by a host of positive client reviews, in part because we offer a tailored approach for every client and every case.

We are here to help you

If you think that you have been let down, suffered an injury or had emotional distress as a result of a prescription error, get in touch today. We can help you get back on the road to recovery.

Call us on 0800 234 3234 or contact us and a member of our legal team will call you back.

Prescription error negligence FAQs

If we take your case on a No Win No Fee agreement, then you won’t owe us anything if your case is unsuccessful. If it is successful, your payment will be taken as a pre-agreed percentage of your compensation, which is typically no more than 25%. We will deduct this before paying you your compensation, leaving you without any fees to settle.

You can claim against the NHS if you have received insufficient care. The process for claiming against the NHS is slightly different to private medical care but our solicitors are experienced in these claims too.

The important thing to remember is any compensation will not come directly out of the NHS patient care budget but instead from NHS Resolution. This is the body responsible for attempting to rectify mistakes made by healthcare professionals within the NHS. It has an annual budget in place, which ensures that compensation is paid out fairly to those who have received insufficient care.

As with most medical negligence claims, time limits apply when you make a wrong prescription claim. Patients normally have three years to make a claim from the moment the negligence occurred. There are some exceptions for this time limit, however, which apply to the following:

Under-18s – parents or guardians can claim on their behalf at any time before their 18th birthday. If a claim has not been made by the time they turn 18, then a three-year time limit for them to claim themselves will begin.
Incapacitated patients – if the affected person does not have the mental capacity to claim themselves, then a loved one can do it on their behalf at any time under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Should they regain capacity, then the three-year time limit for them to claim on their own will begin.

If you are ever unsure about how long you have left to claim for prescription error negligence, speak to our medical negligence experts as soon as possible. By sharing your case with us as soon as you can, we will have more time to investigate your claim and pursue the compensation to which you might be entitled.

The amount you could receive for a medical negligence claim for prescription errors varies depending on your specific case. Some things that will be taken into account include:

The severity of your injury
The impact it has had on your life
Effects on your finances such as being unable to work

Contact us today

If you think that you have been let down, suffered injury, and emotional distress as a result of a prescription error, get in touch today. We’ll help you get back on the road to recovery.

Call us on 0800 234 3234 or contact us and a member of our legal team will call you back.

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Common Claims