No win, no fee lawyers and prescription errors
Every year in the UK there are hundreds of incidents where patients at hospitals and GP clinics are exposed to potentially fatal mistakes regarding their prescription medication. While, fortunately, the consequences of such errors are usually relatively innocuous, incidents remain where the error may result in the patient contacting a no win, no fee lawyer with a view to claiming compensation.
What is the background?
Errors could occur at any stage in the medication process. Whether that is prescription, labelling or dispensing, all staff must remain thorough and vigilant in order for a mistake not to result in potentially catastrophic medical negligence.
In 2007 much has been written about the pressures imposed on UK hospital workers by alleged funding and staff shortages. Such conditions can result in situations where under-qualified nursing staff find themselves the only worker on a ward, in effect acting as a senior nurse when they do not have the experience, time or training to deal with the job's pressures.
What can go wrong?
Wrong drug
This is self-explanatory really. A patient may be given a drug other than the one prescribed for them. Provided it is labelled correctly, this will usually be noticed early enough for it not to cause any lasting problems. However, if medication is incorrectly labelled, the patient may take the drug, oblivious to the fact it is not appropriate to treating his or her condition and may, in fact, even be causing severe complications.
For example, if a patient allergic to penicillin is mistakenly given a medication containing the substance, it may cause severe damage.
Wrong patient
The consequences of this are much the same as in the above scenario. If one patient is given the prescribed medication of another patient, he or she may suffer health consequences of varying degrees.
Wrong route
This may cause problems if, for example, a patient with a gastro-intestinal condition is given a drug in a capsule form when he or she should be receiving it via an inhaler.
Dosages
If the dose a patient is prescribed exceeds recommended therapeutic ranges it may place undue stresses on the body. This can also be a problem in hospitals where overworked staff may administer patients with too much or too little of their prescribed drug.
Where a drug is administered intravenously, this could have a very serious impact on patient health.
Out of date
Out of date medications can become biological hazards. In extreme cases the consequences of taking an out of date medication can be fatal.
Contamination
If a particular drug has been exposed to harmful contaminants during its manufacturing process, it has the potential to do harm. In some ways this may be more of a product liability issue than one of medical negligence. However, anyone affected still has the right to seek the representation of a no win, no fee lawyer in order to pursue litigation.
Accountability?
All NHS Trusts release reports such as the one compiled by North Staffordshire Primary Care Trusts in 2003. These reports form part of Trusts' accountability and actually work to reduce the number of circumstances where affected patients might need to seek the representation of no win, no fee lawyers .
The North Staffordshire Primary Care Trust made several recommendations they hope will reduce the kinds of situations which might result in prescription errors.
These were:
Manager to discuss the incident with the person concerned to establish what may have contributed to the error and how it could be prevented in the future.
To re-affirm procedures of the administration of medicines by reading the Policy relating to this.
Formal re-assessment of staff in the administration of medicines, mentoring of new or inexperienced staff to ensure competency.
To be alert to activity levels in the ward, department that may not be conducive to safe administration of medicines.
YouClaim's no win, no fee lawyers
YouClaim have an extensive team of skilled and sensitive medical negligence lawyers, all of who work on a no win, no fee basis.
Over the years we have helped thousands of people claim the compensation they deserve.
We are able to bring our service to you at absolutely no legal costs or fees, while working to ensure that you receive 100% of all compensation awarded you.
If you would like one of our legal team to connect you with the no win, no fee lawyer best suited to your case, simply call 0800 10 757 95.
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