Medical-negligence claims on the rise

AN Oldham lawyer is warning of a surge in medical-negligence claims as extra pressure is heaped on pharmacists by the Government.

John Pollitt highlighted several cases he is currently working on which, he said, were the alleged result of pharmacies making careless medication errors.

They include a toddler who was allegedly given the wrong medication by mistake at a local pharmacy which, said Mr Pollitt, was not an isolated incident.

He said he had been approached with five similar cases over the past few months, and errors in dispensing drugs accounted for around five per cent of the firm’s medical-negligence claims.

In one case a girl, who can’t be named for legal reasons, was mistakenly dispensed an anti-psychotic drug instead of an antihistamine.

The girl survived the incident but ended up in hospital and suffered severe physical distress as a result, claim her family.

Mr Pollitt, from Queen Street solicitors, Pearson Hinchliffe, said a study of UK pharmacies revealed errors occur in around two out of every hundred dispensed items, often with dire consequences.

Apart from the obvious injuries to patients involved, medication errors caused distress and suffering, and ultimately a loss of faith in the healthcare system, he said.

Mr Pollitt added: “My main concern, as a solicitor representing patients, is to get an explanation and, where possible, compensation for my clients.

“Yet, I do spare a thought for pharmacy staff who are, notwithstanding the occasional failing, for the most part very professional”.

He pointed out that the process of labelling, storing, prescribing, dispensing and checking medicines was complicated and prone to error, and people involved in dispensing errors had to live with the trauma and fear of the potential threat to a patient’s health.

With pharmacists being urged by the Government to take more responsibility for advising people on drugs for minor complaints, error rates were likely to increase, said Mr Pollitt.

“Simple administrative errors, such as failing carefully to check prescriptions, can lead to potentially catastrophic outcomes,” he said.

“I hope that lessons will be learned from the experiences of my clients, so as to make such errors less likely to happen in future.”

His recent cases include:

::A patient given 75 per cent lower dosage of epilepsy medicine than prescribed, resulting in fits after nearly 15 year of being fit free.

::Two examples of patients being dispensed Atenolol, used to treat hypertension, instead of the antidepressant Amitriptyline, resulting in severe withdrawal symptoms and breathing difficulties

::A patient dispensed someone else’s medicines, resulting in hospital admission.

::A patient mistakenly given anti-schizophrenia medication instead of steroids, resulting in severe complications to a terminal illness.