Care home failed to spot GP’s mistake
IRENE Young was given drugs meant for another patient after a mix-up at her GP surgery.
Mrs Young, 92, had become very withdrawn, was slumped in a chair and her eyes were irritated and sore at her care home in Stowmarket, Suffolk.
Her daughter Catherine immediately suspected she may be on the wrong medication and asked to see her files.
The surgery had mixed up her mother’s notes with another patient’s and she had been taken off steroids to control a painful muscle condition, polymyalgia rheumatica. She was also given eye drops for glaucoma which she didn’t need, leaving her eyes irritated.
Mrs Young recovered, dying a few months short of her 96th birthday in 2014. Her daughter has since campaigned for better checks on prescriptions. She said there had been a ‘perfect storm’ of blunders, with the initial GP error missed by the pharmacist and the care home.