If you or a loved one has been the victim of a prescription error and you are looking into care home prescription medical negligence claims then Medical Negligence Assist can be a useful source of information.
We are experts in helping people to seek compensation for health problems they have faced as a result of being let down by their doctors and by hospitals.
This guide contains information on when and how you could be able to make compensation claims for being given an incorrect prescription while living in a care home.
You can also find out about how we can offer you a medical negligence solicitor to work with if you do make a claim. To begin making a medical negligence claim, just call 0800 652 3087 to speak to us about whether or not we could help you.
Select A Section
- A Guide To Care Home Medication Prescription Error Medical Negligence Claims
- What Is Care Home Prescription Medication Negligence?
- Ineffective Medication Prescribed In A Care Home
- Claim If You Were Over Prescribed Medication In A Care Home
- Claim If You Were Under Prescribed Medication In A Care Home
- Nursing Errors Relating To Prescription Errors
- Guidelines For Care Homes To Deal With Prescription Errors
- Guidelines For Reducing Medication And Prescription Errors
- How Medication Errors In Care Homes Should Be Reported
- Compensation Calculator For A Care Home Medication Prescription Error
- Why Choose To Make A Medical Negligence Claim With Our Team?
- Time limits To Make A Claim Against A Care Home
- No Win No Fee Care Home Medication Prescription Error Medical Negligence Claims
- Contact Medical Negligence Assist
- Where To Find Out More
A Guide To Care Home Medication Prescription Error Medical Negligence Claims
Patients in care homes are usually elderly or suffering from long term disabling health problems such as dementia or Parkinson’s’ disease. The complicated health needs of care home patients mean that many of them are likely to be receiving prescription medication. Ensuring that the prescriptions the patients are receiving are prescribed and administered correctly is an important responsibility for the staff and doctors at a care home. Failing in this responsibility could be classed as a form of clinical malpractice. Clinical malpractice can have severe health consequences for a patient, especially a vulnerable one being cared for in a residential home.
Clinical negligence which leads to patients suffering avoidable harm can be grounds for making a medical negligence claim. This is a guide to making a medical negligence claim. This guide is going to outline some key points that are important for you to understand if you wish to go ahead with making a claim.
- What constitutes a medication error.
- When a medication error could justify making a compensation claim.
- What could cause a medication error to occur and what its effects might be
- What care homes are meant to do to prevent medication errors from occurring.
- How much compensation you could be entitled to for a medication error.
- How you can benefit from using a solicitor provided by Medical Negligence Assist when it comes to making a compensation claim.
What Is Care Home Prescription Medication Negligence?
Medication negligence is a situation in which doctors, pharmacists or nurses fail in their duty of care and provide a patient with the incorrect medication. For the context of this article, we are addressing medication errors that occur in care homes. Medication errors can occur as a result of mistakes and failures in prescribing the medication, preparing the medication, administering the medication, monitoring the patient’s intake of the medication or in providing advice to the patient about how to take the medication. Medication errors can cause health problems for patients affected by them by causing the illness to go untreated or by adding further health complications on top of the pre-existing illness. Many medication errors result in relatively minor health problems, such as rashes or vomiting. However, in serious situations, a medication error could put a patient’s life at risk. This could occur by prescribing a patient with a medication which they are allergic to, leading to the patient suffering potentially fatal reactions such as anaphylactic shock.
Medication errors are an issue in the British healthcare sector. It has been revealed that millions of prescriptions are erroneously prescribed to patients in the UK every year. The NHS has admitted as such. In one study of around 6,000 prescriptions, looking at dosage, record keeping and follow up appointments, it was found that one in eight patients had a prescription with an error. The overwhelming majority of these cases were classed as minor or moderate and did not pose a serious threat to the patient’s health. However, the same study found that the rate of medication errors is much higher among elderly patients. Four in ten patients over the age of seventy-five had a prescription with an error. This is a relevant issue as this guide is looking specifically at prescription errors that occur in care homes. For general information about prescription errors, see this guide here.
Ineffective Medication Prescribed In A Care Home
Ineffective prescribing, simply put, is when a doctor prescribes a medication that will fail to treat the patient’s condition. This can occur in a number of different ways. A doctor might have misdiagnosed the patient’s health condition, or diagnosed it correctly but failed to identify the correct medication to prescribe. It could also occur in situations in which a patient is prescribed two or medications at the same time, which counteract each other’s effects.
In some circumstances, doctors could prescribe an ineffective medication by providing them with courses of homoeopathic medications, or other scientifically unproven forms of alternative medicine such as acupuncture or chiropractic treatments.
In cases of ineffective medical prescriptions, the threat to the patient’s health may not come from the side effects of the medication itself, but rather through the patient’s health worsening where an effective prescription would have improved their condition. The preventable ill-health which you could suffer as a result of an ineffective prescription prescribed by a doctor in a care home could entitle you to make a medical negligence compensation claim.
Claim If You Were Over Prescribed Medication In A Care Home
Over-prescribing is when a doctor provides a patient with a medication of too great a quantity, this can be through prescribing too much, instructing the patient to take doses too often, or by prescribing it for too long. In some cases, doctors can over-prescribe by prescribing patients a medication where no treatment was necessary at all. In other cases over-prescribing can cause problems by causing a patient to take multiple drugs at once, thus increasing the risks of harmful drug on drug interactions.
These sorts of mistakes are considered to be a breach of a doctors duty of care, if you have been harmed by a doctor over-prescribing you with medication then you could be entitled to begin a claim for compensation.
Claim If You Were Under Prescribed Medication In A Care Home
In some cases, a patient can suffer from health problems due to being under prescribed a medication. Under prescribing is a term to describe situations in which a doctor has prescribed a patient with a medication of too low a dose to be effective. There are a number of reasons why a doctor may prescribe a dose of medication that is too low.
- Unfounded fears that the patient may suffer a reaction to the medication.
- Overestimating the effectiveness of the medication.
- Attempting to save on costs by providing less medication.
There is evidence to suggest that under-prescribing occurs among older patients due to doctors being more apprehensive about prescribing doses to older, and therefore frailer, patients. Under-prescription can be made out of an honest mistake, however, human error is not an excuse for causing harm to a patient by providing them with inappropriate or ineffective treatment. You could be entitled to make a compensation claim if you have been harmed by being under prescribed a medication.
Nursing Errors Relating To Prescription Errors
Nurses do not tend to have the authority to be making prescriptions; in a hospital or care home environment, their responsibility will be to dispense medication to the patients. Nurses are expected to dispense medication correctly if you suffer a health problem because a nurse in a care home provided you with the wrong medication then you could have grounds for making a medical negligence claim. Nurses could provide care home residents with the wrong medication by:
- Mistakenly giving a patient medication intended for someone else
- Giving a patient their medication on the wrong day
- Failing to provide a patient with medication.
- Providing a patient with the wrong amount of medication.
Guidelines For Care Homes To Deal With Prescription Errors
Care homes dispensing medication errors could constitute a breach of their duty of care. They should not be allowed to occur, nevertheless, care homes should keep in mind that they could potentially occur. As well as taking preventative measures, care homes should also ensure that any errors are recorded, investigated and lessons learned from them. Care homes should be ready and willing to make changes in their procedures in order to implement lessons from past mistakes.
Staff performance and the care homes procedures should be regularly reviewed and training and competencies kept up to date. An open attitude towards acknowledging mistakes in order to reduce the risk of mistakes being repeated should be maintained. You can read a useful breakdown of what care homes should be prepared to do in order to handle prescription errors.
Guidelines For Reducing Medication And Prescription Errors
There are a number of measures which care homes can employ to reduce the number of prescription errors that occur in their facilities. Suggestions for methods for preventing medication errors in care homes include:
- Having a dedicated prescribing support pharmacist to review and stock pharmaceutical products
- Training staff in potential measures for dealing with resident behaviour as an alternative to prescribing drugs where possible.
- Having monthly visits by trained pharmacists to monitor the dispensing of prescription drugs
- Having stricter protocols for the dispensing of medication, particularly antipsychotics.
- Ensuring that the details of prescriptions are written down clearly and legibly.
For further information on what guidelines care homes can follow to reduce the number of medication and prescription mistakes, you can read the guide that is linked to in the resources section at the bottom of this article.
How Medication Errors In Care Homes Should Be Reported
As soon as a medication error is discovered it must be immediately recorded and reported. The member of staff who is first aware of the mistake should immediately inform the manager and the clinicians in charge of the patients care. In a care home, this will likely be the head clinician of the care home and the manager of the care home. The pharmacy from which the medication was dispensed must also be informed as soon as possible.
All adult social care must notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 about specific incidents. An incident report form must be carried out and statements taken from any of the staff involved in or witness to the mistake. The patient/residents record must also have the incident added to it. It is important that such a report is completed and in a timely fashion in order to ensure that an investigation can be carried out. The resident themselves should also be informed of what has happened to them.
To see in more detail how care homes and other facilities should respond to incidents of medical prescription errors, see the guide linked to in the resources section at the bottom of this page.
Compensation Calculator For A Care Home Medication Prescription Error
We can’t put a finger on how much money you could be owed if your compensation claim goes ahead successfully as each individual case has numerous different factors to take into account that are unique to the circumstances of each case. However, we can point out the ways in which compensation is calculated and list the types of damages.
This table is a personal injury claims calculator, it lists the value of a number of different examples of health problems that might arise from receiving the wrong medication in a care home according to the severity of the injury.
Injury | Notes | Compensation |
Kidney (a) | Serious and permanent damage to both kidneys. | £158,970 to £197,480 |
Kidney (b) | Significant risk of kidney infection or other loss of function. | up to £60,050 |
Kidney (c) | Loss of kidney and no damage to the other. | £28,880 to £42,110 |
Spleen injury (a) | Loss of spleen and subsequent health issues. | £19,510 to £24,680 |
Spleen Injury (b) | Loss of spleen without future health issues. | £4,080 to £8,110 |
Lung disease (a) | Young person with lung problems who is likely to suffer progressively worse health in the future. | £94,470 to £127,530 |
Lung disease (b0 | Difficulty breathing. | £29,380 to £51,460 |
Lung disease (e0 | Bronchitis and wheezing with little effects on social and work life. | £19,510 to £29,380 |
The personal injury compensation calculator displays how much money you could receive for having the injury itself. But in addition to the illness itself, there are the indirect consequences of suffering an illness, particularly financial consequences. These can include:
- Having to spend money on further medical treatment to treat the effects of the wrong prescription.
- Having to spend money on travelling to receive treatment for the effects of the wrong medication
- Additional care costs arising as a consequence of the effects of the wrong medication.
In order to successfully claim these damages as a part of your compensation, you would have to have a record of invoices and contracts which you could present as proof to verify that you have taken on these expenses as a result of your health situation. Call us if you are having any difficulty or confusion in this.
Why Choose To Make A Medical Negligence Claim With Our Team?
Medical Negligence Assist can provide you with free advice and consultations on making medical negligence claims, not just in the guides on our website, but also in conversations that you can have with our team members for free by calling us.
The solicitors that Medical Negligence Assist works with are experienced specialists in helping claimants fight for the most amount of compensation possible, especially in personal injury claim cases. They will be dedicated to putting together the strongest possible case in order to try and win compensation. As you will read further on in this guide, they also will not force you to pay heavily out of your own pocket thanks to your ability to make a no win no fee claim with them.
Time limits To Make A Claim Against A Care Home
Although you do not have to rush into making a personal injury claim right away if you have been harmed by receiving the wrong prescription in a care home, there is still a personal injury claims time limit. This time limit is three years, so long as it has been less than three years since you became aware of the harm suffered due to the prescription errors you could still be entitled to make a valid compensation claim. In certain circumstances, an extension of the time limit could be requested and granted, but generally valid claims cannot be made outside of the three-year personal injury claim time limit.
No Win No Fee Care Home Medication Prescription Error Medical Negligence Claims
Legal bills can be expensive, a good way to work around them would be to make a no win no fee claim, one where you aren’t obliged to pay legal bills to your solicitor if the claim is unsuccessful and you don’t get any compensation. No win no fee claims work this way because the solicitor’s payment comes out of your compensation, an amount which you can negotiate with them while preparing to make the claim.
Contact Medical Negligence Assist
We are happy to discuss both starting a claim and answering any of your questions about how making a personal injury claim works if you get in touch. Feel free to either call 0800 652 3087 or put your details into our websites “start a claim” form.
Where To Find Out More
Making A Claim Against A Hospital
Research Into Guidelines For Preventing Risk Of Medication Errors.
Make A Complaint About NHS Treatment
Written by Jack
Edited by LisM.