Baby medicine six months past use-by date

AN NHS hospital has apologised after dispensing medicine for a baby that was six months beyond its use-by date.

Four-month-old Phoebe Nightingale was given the expired medication, Gaviscon, to treat severe reflux earlier this month at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

An internal investigation began after her mother pointed out to staff that the medicine’s use-by date expired two months before her daughter was born.

“I had only got as far as the car park when I spotted the date,” said Lauren Nightingale, 27, of Ramsgate.

“I was disgusted – I brought it back into the pharmacy and they were just as appalled as me. They checked all the other boxes and they all said Feb 2017, so we couldn’t even get any medicine.”

She said staff had said her daughter would not have been harmed by the expired medicine, but that it would not have worked as well.

Will Wilson, the pharmacy director, said: “We are very sorry for this mistake – we ensured that the patient was given in-date medicine as quickly as possible.” East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said robotic dispensers in its pharmacy had not been involved in the incident.