Day Lewis Pharmacy Prescription Error Claims Guide – How To Make A Wrong Medication Negligence Compensation Claim?

Wrong medication negligence claims against Day Lewis pharmacies guide

If a Day Lewis Pharmacy gave you the wrong medication, negligence may have been the root cause. This guide is dedicated to showing how such a prescription error could result in the victim being eligible to make a medical negligence claim. We cover the kinds of mistakes that can be made at a pharmacy, and why these could be the basis of a valid claim.

You might have additional questions based on unique aspects of your claim that this guide does not answer. Don’t worry if you do, because our team can answer them for you if you give them a call on 0800 652 3087. An advisor will address them for you, and provide any further help you need to get your claim started.

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A Guide On Making A Claim For Wrong Medication Negligence Claim By A Day Lewis Pharmacy

If you have ever had to use the services of a personal injury solicitor to make a personal injury claim, then much of this guide will likely seem familiar to you. The process of making a compensation claim for a Day Lewis Pharmacy prescription error is very similar to that which is followed when making an accident or injury claim.

The first few sections of this guide are all focused on information related to how pharmaceutical errors are made and the impact they could have on the health of the victim. We give an introduction to what pharmacy errors are, and why a failure in the duty of care of a pharmacist could lead to the victim being eligible to make a claim. We follow this with several sections which cover a specific kind of mistake that can be made at a pharmacy by staff, including the supervising pharmacist. Lastly, we list some of the types of health problems that pharmaceutical mistakes can cause.

The final sections of this guide are about financial and legal considerations when making a claim for a pharmaceutical error. There is a time limit that you will need to start your claim within, and we have provided a table that details the different ones that could apply. A further table follows this, that shows the range of compensation that could be recovered by clients with different severities of illness. We close this guide with some advice on how to start your claim, and also an overview of what a No Win, No Fee claim is, and why for some people, this is the best way to get the legal help they need to make a claim.

This guide tries to answer as many possible questions as it can, but may not have addressed every one you have. If this is so, please contact our team on the phone number near the top of this page. One of our expert advisors will be available to answer them all for you and provide you with all the help you will need to get your claim started as soon as possible.

What Is Wrong Medication Negligence By A Pharmacy?

If you are given the wrong medication, negligence could be the cause. Additionally, the related mistakes of proving the wrong instructions for taking medication, or providing the wrong dose of the right medication, could also be caused by medical negligence.

Your pharmacist, and also the staff they are supervising, are required to fulfil the basic duty of care that all medical professionals have towards patients. To never cause any harm to a patient in a way that could have been avoided. Any valid claim for pharmacy negligence will need to satisfy the following three requirements:

  1. A medical professional had a duty of care towards the claimant.
  2. The medical professional failed to fulfil this duty of care (directly or indirectly), leading to a breach of duty. 
  3. The breach caused some form of harm to the claimant that would not have occurred if the medical professional had taken some form of alternative action.

This is a basic test for discerning whether a potential claim is valid, and the claimant could be eligible for compensation. If you would like your claim evaluated to find out whether it could be viable, please speak to one of our advisors today.

Top Types Of Wrong Medication Negligence By A Pharmacist

There are many reasons why a medical negligence solicitor might need to process a claim for the victim of a pharmacy error. In the following sections, we are going to give some examples of these. However, there are potentially many more kinds of mistakes that can be made. No matter the root cause of the mistake made by a pharmacy, if it can be proven to have been through clinical negligence, and you have suffered harm, you may be able to make a claim.

Delays To A Prescription Being Filled By A Pharmacy

Some people require regular medication to keep them alive. Even a person who does not need medication so desperately could still see their illness become worse if their medication is delayed. If the delay could be proven to have been the fault of a pharmacist or one of the staff that they are responsible for, a claim might be possible.

Dangerous Interactions Between Medications

Many kinds of drugs have well-known interactions with other drugs. Some can have interactions that are not consistent, but which doctors are aware of. If you are given two or more types of medication that react badly together, you can suffer serious harm to your health. A pharmacist is supposed to check that the drugs on the prescription are safe to take together. When they do not, and a reaction occurs, a claim could be possible.

Harmful Allergic Reaction To A Prescription

Drug allergies can happen at any time. Even if a person has been taking the same medication for many years, they can still develop an allergy to it. Allergic reactions can range in severity from barely noticeable to fatal. Anaphylaxis is the name of the worst kind of allergic reaction, which can result in death if the victim does not receive rapid medical help. When a pharmacist is dispensing medication, they are supposed to check that the patient doesn’t have a known allergy to it. If they fail to do this and the patient is harmed, then a valid reason to make a claim may exist.

Being Dispensed The Wrong Dosage Of Your Medication

Taking the wrong dosage of the right medication can be just as dangerous as taking the entirely wrong medication. Some drugs have very serious side effects at higher doses. Others can be fatal due to an overdose. If you can prove that your health was harmed due to a pharmacy giving you the wrong dose of medication, you may be able to claim.

Being Dispensed A Different Person’s Medication

A busy pharmacy might deal with hundreds of prescriptions every day, many of which will have been pre-ordered to be picked up at a later stage. It is possible in such circumstances, that a person is given the wrong prescription that was meant for somebody else when they come to pick theirs up. If they then subsequently become ill due to taking somebody else’s medication, they could make a claim for the harm suffered due to the pharmacy’s mistake.

Being Dispensed A Different Medication

The stock or storeroom of a large pharmacy could contain dozens of shelves and cupboards with hundreds of different types of medication. If a mistake is made when stocking shelves, or when one of the pharmacy staff is picking medication to make up a prescription, then a patient could be given the wrong medication entirely. This could have serious implications for the patient’s health. A claim may be possible if clinical negligence can be proven.

Prescription Drug Error Side Effects

The range of health problems that can be caused by a pharmaceutical error is vast. This includes taking medication incorrectly due to not being given the correct instructions, taking the wrong dose of medication, or taking entirely the wrong medication. Some of the health issues that could be caused are:

  • An allergic reaction that could range in severity from a rash and a runny nose to death due to anaphylaxis.
  • A non-allergic reaction that can cause a wide range of symptoms such as insomnia, suicidal thoughts and damage to organs.
  • Your underlying medical condition could become worse because it has not been treated, or complications set in.
  • If you take medication too frequently or at a too high dose you could overdose.

All of these are examples of medical problems that a mistake made at a pharmacy could cause. In each case, if it can be proven that the pharmacy or its staff was responsible due to clinical negligence, you may be able to make a compensation claim for the harm you suffered.

How Much Time Do I Have To Claim For A Prescription Error?

Just as there is a personal injury claims time limit that an injury or accident claim needs to be made within, there is a time limit that medical negligence claims have to start within. The main time limits that could apply are:

Circumstances of Claim Applicable Time Limit
The claimant is above the age of 18. Three years from the date that the negligence took place, or the date that a medical condition caused by the negligence was diagnosed.
The claimant is under the age of 18. Three years from the claimant’s 18th birthday, unless a litigation friend is making a claim on their behalf before they turn 18.

In some very rare circumstances, these time limits can be different or extended. Our team can tell you just which time limit will apply in your own case, and if it could differ from these general ones.

What Could You Claim? – Prescription Error Compensation Calculator

If you have made or considered making a personal injury claim in the past, you may have come across a personal injury claims calculator that was intended to roughly estimate the value of your claim. This table below is similar, in that it will help you to work out the range of pharmacy error compensation you might be able to claim for. It has been based on the Judicial Guidelines, a legal publication used by solicitors and the courts to value claims.

Health IssueHow Bad?CompensationNotes
IllnessSevere£36,060 to £49,270These illnesses could be potentially life-threatening and would exhibit painful, traumatic symptoms such as high fever, fatigue, body cramps, etc. The illness would be long-term.
IllnessSerious£8,950 to £18,020In this bracket would be quite serious but also short-term illnesses. Symptoms could include sickness, vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, etc. There could also be long-term health issues such as reduced enjoyment of food, sexual dysfunction, or impaired bowels that could in some cases, even be permanent.
IllnessModerate£3,710 to £8,950This category would include illnesses that have moderate symptoms such as diarrhoea, stomach cramps, bowel movements impaired, fatigue, etc. The victim might need to spend a few days in the hospital, but the illness will clear up completely, with possibly one or more long term symptoms that could last up to 2 years.
IllnessMinorUp to £3,710A minor illness that would manifest symptoms such as severe, disabling pain, nausea, diarrhoea and stomach/muscle cramps. The illness would last from a few days to several weeks.

This aspect of compensation is known as general damages. It relates to the physical aspects of the claim, this means injuries and also psychological problems. The level of compensation that you receive will be based on how bad your illness was, how long it lasted, and whether you have to go through any traumatic treatment. Damages could include:

  • Psychological damage, such as depression or anxiety, that was a direct result of being ill. For example, depression caused by being bedridden for an extended period.
  • General pain and suffering caused by being ill.
  • Painful, traumatic or invasive treatment, that was required as part of the overall regime for curing your illness.
  • Stress and trauma due to being ill, especially if your illness lasted a long time.
  • Long-term or permanent impairment of function, such as a disability that will negatively affect your quality of life.

Each claim is different, so you may not receive all of these kinds of damages, and you could also receive other types of damages. For a general idea of the kinds of damage you might receive, please speak to one of our advisors.

It’s also possible to recover expenses or losses associated with the injury. Some of the things that can be claimed for include:

  • Loss of earnings due to taking time away from work while you received from your illness.
  • The cost of care if you needed to hire a nurse to take care of you.
  • Out of pocket expenses such as the cost of travel tickets.
  • Loss of future working potential, due to long-term or permanent disability.
  • Private medical fees if you needed treatment that the NHS couldn’t provide.

No Win, No Fee  Claims For Day Lewis Pharmacy Prescription Errors

Have you considered using the services of a No Win, No Fee solicitor to make your medical negligence claim? A No Win, No Fee agreement, also referred to as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), is a legal contract between a lawyer and a claimant to provide legal services, whereby the lawyer’s fees are deferred until the claim has been successfully settled. This ensures that a) the claimant gets the expert legal representation they need, and b) that the financial risks attached to making the claim have been minimised.

The solicitor working under a CFA won’t levy any kind of new claim handling fee to begin working on the claim. While the claim is being processed, even if this takes months, the solicitor still won’t ask the claimant to pay any fees. If the claim is a failure and no compensation is won, the solicitor will not expect to be paid the fees they have racked up so far.

Only once the claim has been a success and the lawyer has received a compensation settlement on behalf of the claimant will the solicitor’s legal fees be due. These fees will be in the form of a success fee, which is a small contribution toward the solicitor’s costs. They are deducted from the compensation awarded at the end of the claim.

If you would like a fuller explanation of how a No Win, No Fee claim works, and to find out whether using such a service would be appropriate for your claim, please speak to one of our advisors today.

How Medical Negligence Assist Could Help With Your Case

If you need to sue a pharmacy for a medication mistake, or you simply have some questions about the legal process of making a claim for a medication error, we are here to help you. We have access to a panel of clinical negligence lawyers that have over 30-years of experience helping patients that have been harmed to get the compensation they are entitled to.

Every one of the solicitors on our panel will do everything possible to make sure a claim is successful. They will also try and get the most compensation they can on behalf of the claimant, without doing anything that could put the claim at risk.

We will always use plain English when dealing with you and drop the legal jargon entirely. We feel that it is important that you understand what we are doing for you fully. We are just a phone call away whenever you want an update on the status of your claim or questions about what we have been doing on your behalf. If you are ready for us to begin helping you, then please call our team on the number below.

Start Your Claim

Do you have general questions about making a claim for pharmacist negligence when dispensing medications? Or perhaps you are already convinced that you have a valid claim and need to arrange for a medical negligence lawyer to begin processing it for you. No matter what kind of help or information you need, please contact our team on 0800 652 3087. One of our expert advisors will be on hand to answer all of your questions, provide you with any additional legal advice you need, and help you to get your claims started right away.

Further Resources

These external pages may have more useful information:

UK Medical Negligence Statistics

How To Make An NHS Complaint

Information About Allergic Reactions

These other guides could be worth reading:

A Guide To Claiming Against Boots Pharmacy

How To Claim Against A Pharmacy

Claiming For A Prescription Error

 

Written by Mac

Edited by Rich