Pharmacy medication error

[PrincessHoneysuckle]

Would you formally complain? Or accept mistakes happen?

Got a new prescription for HRT tablets as doctor increased my dose from 1mg to 2mg.
Ive been taking them for a few weeks feeling like crap but just thought it was my body adjusting.
Ive been given the wrong hrt with a similar name by the pharmacy.Similar box so I didnt think anything of it.
Am I partly at fault or is this on the pharmacy?

is it actually the wrong active substance or 'just' a different brand name?
have you received the full pack including thd package leaflet?

I accept mistakes can happen.

But why are you taking your HRT orally, not via gel or patch? They have lower risks than tablets.

Wrong medication not brand.
Preference as tablets more convenient.

What did the pharmacy say when you took it back?

Been on tablets for 1 yr and 10 months with no ill effects

Do you know the prescription was definitely correct? I’d pop into the pharmacy and ask them to double check

I always check my medication before leaving the pharmacy. We are all at the mercy of human error. No-one is infallible.

Take it all back to the pharmacy. They need to record the error and replace your medication.

Yes.I looked online at what the dr prescribed then rang the chemist and they told me they had issued the same thing but its different on the label.
Very similar name.

Is it the same active ingredients? And dose? If so I believe they can do this.

They definitely need to investigate then! When I worked in a pharmacy in my teen years (so I’m going back a bit) the technician put up the medication and it was double checked by the pharmacist or if the pharmacist put it up the technician checked it! They need to know that a mistake has been made! For some people there could be a life threatening interaction between the wrong medications.

No.

I would put it in writing to Dr and Pharmacist, via email. I would ask them to sort it out between them with the utmost urgency and advise me.

You Dr should know if you have been taking the wrong medication.

Go back to the pharmacy.
That's the only way this will be sorted.

What have you been prescribed and what have you been given?

Really you need to go into the pharmacy and speak to them, so they can explain if it's a different brand or replace the medication for the correct one.

I would have reported it to the Pharmacy as soon as I found out. They will have to investigate. Have you told them?

Ive been given a continous oestrogen and progesterone tablet.my usual tablets are oestrogen for most of the pack then combined with progesterone for the last 12 days.
Im going to the pharmacy tomorrow.

If you’re saying it’s literally different ingredients and dose I don’t understand why you would even be questioning going to speak to the pharmacy??

I find it odd that you are even asking this question. It’s not about complaining or blame. Of course annerror has been made and you need to go back and tell them so that they investigate and put processes in place so it doesn’t happen again. It should trigger a local investigation and they will have systems which deal with dispensing errors.

Sorry for any confusion im not questioning about going to.the pharmacy.I wanted to know if it was a serious error on their part or my fault for not reading the label.
Its the first time anything like this has happened.

Hi OP, we are all human and can make mistakes but what matters is how we learn from them. I work in healthcare and patient safety, this is what I would do:

Go back to the pharmacy (which you are doing), inform them and ask them to replace the medication.

Ask them to report this as an incident and investigate.

Ask them to inform you of the outcome of their investigation and what learning they have taken from it.

If they don't listen to you or give you a suitable response about their investigation and learning I would complain at that point.

It is usually better to approach these things more informally then via a direct complaint as you can generally get quicker answers.

Also worth asking the pharmacist or checking with your GP that the change from one HRT medication to another doesn't need any further adjustments.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

The pharmacist is accountable for ensuring the correct medication is dispensed. It is always worth checking though because, as you have found, mistakes can happen.

I’d say it was a very serious error. Imagine if that was a medication that someone took that had a reaction with something else they were taking and it was fatal? Yes mistakes happen in life, but medication shouldn’t be one of them.

Thanks x

The pharmacy i use are terrible i have my meds delivered and have had wrong meds, wrong doses, other peoples meds, out of date meds. I email them to point it out and they apologise and send out new meds and collect the wrong meds but nothing changes so now I just check everything myself I do the same when im in hospital to as their even worse. I would say to anyone dont ever take anything without knowing yourself its correct. This is why the death rate for medical errors is so high