By Danielle Newton. Last Updated 27th September 2023. If you’ve been prescribed the wrong medication, you may be able to claim compensation depending on how you’ve been negatively affected. However, in order to claim, the incorrect medication must have been prescribed as a result of medical negligence.
A guide to claiming if you’ve been prescribed the wrong medication
This guide will explain what instances you could claim for a medication error. It will also show the difference between an error made by a doctor and a pharmacy error. Furthermore, we will also highlight the benefits of using a No Win No Fee agreement to fund legal representation for your claim.
Our advisors are available 24/7, have years of experience in medication negligence claims and can tell you if you’re eligible to claim in just one phone call. Additionally, they can also put you through to a medical negligence solicitor from our panel who could help you receive clinical negligence compensation.
If you want to contact us, please do so using the details below.
- Call us using 0800 408 7825
- Contact us through our website
- Please write to us using the Live Chat window on your screen.
Please read on to learn more about claiming for a prescription medication error.
Select A Section
- How To Claim If You Were Prescribed The Wrong Medication
- Causes Of Prescription Medication Errors
- Who Could Be Responsible For Prescription Errors?
- What Evidence Could Support Your Claim?
- Calculating Compensation If You Were Prescribed The Wrong Medication
- Talk To Us If You Were Prescribed The Wrong Medication
- Learn More
How To Claim If You Were Prescribed The Wrong Medication
This guide will explain how you could claim if your health was negatively affected because you were given the wrong medication. This can encompass scenarios like:
- The over-prescription of a medication
- The under-prescription of a medication
- Being prescribed the wrong drug
- Being given the wrong prescription. This could either involve you being given someone else’s medication or you being provided with medication that doesn’t reflect your prescription.
- If you’re in a hospital or a care facility, you could be given the wrong medication.
When you seek medical attention, the healthcare provider treating you owes you a duty of care, which means that they have to provide treatment in line with the accepted professional standard. If the level of care that you receive falls below this standard, this is an example of medical negligence.
It’s important to note that you cannot claim compensation for medical negligence itself. In order to claim, you need to have suffered as a result. This could be in the form of a new injury, for instance, if you took a medication that you did not need and it gave you stomach ulcers. However, you could also experience a worsening of your condition because you were prescribed medication that did not have a negative effect on you itself but was ineffective in treating your condition. As a result, your health worsens past the point that it would have don’t if you’d receive the right standard of care.
If you’ve been prescribed the wrong medication and have questions about claiming, please contact our advisors for free legal advice. You can contact them at a time that works for you using the details above.
Causes Of Prescription Medication Errors
A medication error could occur for many different reasons that could greatly affect your quality of life. This could happen because:
- You were misdiagnosed. Not all instances of misdiagnosis will be caused by medical negligence; a doctor might misdiagnose you even while providing the right level of care. But if you were misdiagnosed because of negligence, and prescribed a drug that caused you harm, you may be able to claim.
- A dosage error. Your doctor might prescribe you the right medication, but advise you on the wrong dose. Too low a dose of the medication could be ineffective and allow your condition to progress. Too high a dose could be harmful to you.
- The wrong medication is prescribed to you. For example, you’re given antiviral medication for a condition like sepsis that requires antibiotics.
- A spelling mistake on the prescription.
- Another person’s medication has been given to you. This would be considered a pharmacy error.
- A drug has been incorrectly labelled in the pharmacy. This means that you could be given medication that seems correct due to the label on the prescription bottle indicating this.
You may have been prescribed the wrong medication because of circumstances that we have not mentioned above. However, as long as it was caused by medical negligence, you could have the grounds to claim. Get in touch with our team today for a no-obligation assessment of your claim.
Who Could Be Responsible For Prescription Errors?
To successfully claim for being prescribed the wrong medication, you need to show that your injuries were caused by medical negligence. A medical professional has a duty of care to all patients. The General Medical Council have a code of conduct that medical professionals should uphold.
Sometimes, when you seek medical attention, you might experience a worsening of your condition despite the fact that the healthcare provider is adhering to the standards of their profession. For example, you might be exhibiting unusual symptoms for the condition that you’re suffering from, meaning you’re misdiagnosed and the wrong medication is prescribed to you.
Medical professionals include:
- Doctors, GPs or dentists
- Nurses or orderlies
- A pharmacist or pharmacy worker
The Bolam Test will be a crucial factor in deciding if you receive negligent care. Peers of the medical professional in question will review their actions to determine if the actions fall within the accepted standards of the profession. If they assess that it isn’t, you could receive compensation.
To learn more about this, please contact our advisors. They are experts in medication negligence and can inform you on whether you’re eligible to claim. Contact them 24/7 using the details above.
What Evidence Could Support Your Claim?
Evidence is crucial whether you’re claiming due to a GP error or a doctor error. Without it, it can be very difficult to make a clinical negligence claim.
Examples of evidence that could be useful includes:
- A timeline of all of the side effects caused by having the wrong prescription. This is something you could write yourself.
- Medical scans
- Doctor’s notes
- Photographic evidence of any physical symptoms caused
For more information on the evidence that you can use to support a claim if a medical professional has prescribed you the wrong medication, speak to one of our advisors today.
Doctor Prescribed Wrong Medication – How Long You Have To Claim
As stated above, the medical professional prescribing or dispensing your medication owes you a duty of care. Only when this duty of care is breached, and you suffer unnecessary harm as a result are you eligible to claim. Settlements for the wrong prescription in the UK can depend on the severity of this harm as well as other factors.
In addition to evidence that proves you suffered unnecessarily because of negligence, you must start your claim within the time limit. If the doctor prescribed you the wrong medication, you typically have three years to start your claim as set by the Limitation Act 1980. This could be three years from the date you suffered unnecessarily due to wrong medication or three years from the date this was connected to negligence.
However, there are circumstances that suspend the medical negligence claims time limit. These include children under the age of 18 and those who lack the mental capacity to start a claim themselves. A litigation friend can be appointed to start a claim on their behalf at any point during the time limit’s suspension.
However, should a claimant turn 18 without a claim having been started for them, the time limit is no longer suspended. This also applies if a person regains their capacity. In both of these events, the claimant will then have three years to start their claim.
Call our advisors to discuss how much compensation for the wrong medication you could be eligible to claim. If it seems valid, our advisors can help you start the claim right away.
Calculating Compensation If You Were Prescribed The Wrong Medication
Wrong prescription settlements for medical negligence claims may consist of two heads of claim. These are general and special damages.
If the wrong medication was given to a patient they could suffer in different ways therefore general damages compensate for the physical pain and mental suffering that has been caused by the medical negligence. To help arrive at a value for this head of medical negligence claims, legal professionals can refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This document contains guideline compensation amounts for different types of harm that a patient could suffer.
In our table below, we look at a guideline figures from the 16th edition of the JCG. As every claim is different, it does not represent what you could be awarded.
| Injury Type | Compensation Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Kidney (a) | £169,400 to £210,400 |
Serious damage that is permanent in nature to both kidneys, or total loss of both kidneys. |
| Kidney (b) | Up to £63,980 | Loss of natural functioning, such as significant risk of future urinary tract infections. |
| Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder- Moderately Severe | £23,150 to £59,860 | This bracket is for injuries that lead to issues with your ability to cope with aspects of the outside world, such as the ability to work. Due to the incident, you wouldn’t be able to function anywhere near the pre-trauma level. However, there will be some recovery due to professional help. |
| Digestive system Illness/Damage Resulting from Non-traumatic Injury (i) | £38,430 to £52,500 |
This bracket is for severe toxicosis leading to symptoms like vomiting, fever and serious acute pain leading to hospital admission for some days and weeks and continuing symptoms having a significant impact on your ability to work. |
| Digestive system Illness/Damage Resulting from Non-traumatic Injury (ii) | £9,540 to £19,200 |
This bracket is for an incident that leads to vomiting and diarrhoea that lasts for two to four weeks, causes issues such as disturbing the functioning of your bowel and limiting the enjoyment of food for a number of years. |
| Digestive system Illness/Damage Resulting from Non-traumatic Injury (iii) | £3,950 to £9,540 |
Cases in this bracket cause significant discomfort from things like stomach cramps and fatigue. Some symptoms may last a few weeks, leading to hospital admission being required, but a full recovery could be made within a year or two. |
| Digestive system Illness/Damage Resulting from Non-traumatic Injury (iv) | £910 to £3,950 |
This bracket is for incidents that lead to varying degrees of cramps, disabling pain and diarrhoea that can last for days or weeks. |
| Mental Anguish | £4,670 | This bracket is for injuries causing you to fear a reduction of your life expectancy. |
If you would like to talk about settlements for the wrong prescription, get in touch with one of our advisors.
How Much Compensation For Wrong Medication – Special Damages
You may also be wondering, “I was prescribed wrongly, what else could my compensation award include?” If you make a successful medical negligence claim after a doctor prescribed the wrong medication to you, your compensation award might also include special damages.
This head of claim compensates you for the financial losses you suffered that were directly caused by the harm you suffered. To claim special damages, you should submit evidence of these losses, such as payslips, invoices, and receipts.
Some examples of the financial losses you could be compensated for with special damages in a medical negligence claim include:
- Medical expenses, such as medication costs and therapy.
- Your loss of earnings if you needed time off work to recover. This includes past and future losses.
- Home help, such as the cost of a carer if you need assistance following the incident.
- Travel expenses, including the costs of taxi fares to attend appointments.
If you would like to know how much compensation for the wrong medication you could receive, please get in touch with one of our advisors. They can provide you with a free, personalised claim valuation.
Talk To Us If You Were Prescribed The Wrong Medication
If you want to claim for being prescribed the wrong medication, you may want to know the benefits of making a No Win No Fee claim. The benefits include:
- Not having to pay your solicitor’s legal fees upfront or during the claims process.
- Not having to pay your solicitor’s legal fees if your claim is unsuccessful.
- Only paying your solicitor’s legal fees once a settlement has been reached. They’ll then take a small, legally capped portion of your compensation to cover their legal costs.
Our panel of specialised claim solicitors can work with you on a No Win No Fee basis. However, you speak to our advisors first, who help clarify the nature of the claims process and confirm your eligibility to claim. They offer free legal advice, are available 24/7 and can provide you with a compensation estimate in just one phone call. If you reach one of our advisors, you are also under no obligation to claim through us.
Contact us at a time that works for you using the details below.
- Call us using 0800 408 7825
- Contact us through our website
- Write to us using the Live Chat window on your screen.
Learn More
To learn more about claiming for receiving the wrong prescription, please use the links below.
- If you want to learn more about claiming against the NHS for clinical or medical negligence, please refer to their website.
- Never events are events deemed, by medical standards, to only occur through gross medical negligence. Learn more about it by going on the NHS website.
- Read this document for up-to-date statistics about the NHS.
- You may be wondering, “how long does a medical negligence case take?” If so, view this article on our website.
- Do you want to know more about what to expect at a personal injury medical appointment? If so, read this page.
- View this page to learn whether you can sue your doctor for negligence.
Thank you for reading our guide to claiming after being prescribed the wrong medication.
Article by AU
Publisher ET