Injuries Direct - Personal Injury Claims

A recent University of London study has showed how prescription errors are worryingly common within UK hospitals.

Research carried out in five hospitals in the capital revealed that over 13.2% of prescriptions written for children are done so in error. Even more startling is the rate of nurses who administered drugs to children – often in injection form. Nearly 1 in 5 (19.1%) were found the have made an error when making a judgement of what medicine was required.

Fortunately the majority of prescription errors were picked up when pharmacists cross-checked the prescriptions, therefore the vast majority of children never received the dosage prescribed to them.

However if the drugs had reached the children the results could have lead to serious problems, possibly with fatal consequences.

One child in particular in the study, who suffered from epilepsy, was prescribed 10 times more of the anti-convulsant drug than they should have been.

Professor Ian Wong, one of the authors of the study said: “It was over the weekend so the pharmacist wasn’t around and nobody checked the prescription. On the Monday the pharmacist noticed straight away and stopped the treatment.”

Professor Wong blamed the fact that drugs are not tested on children and doses are not designed with them in mind. As well as this, many of the child prescriptions are made for injections and not the normal tablet form that is easier to judge the dosage of.

He is now calling for rules that only allow pharmacists to make up injections, meaning nurses are able to dedicate more time to caring for patients.

Overall the study showed 391 prescription errors – a 13.2% incorrect rate. The most common mistakes included incomplete prescriptions and dosing errors.