Skip to content 
Last Updated 17th October 2025. Pharmacies are a vital part of the healthcare system, providing medications and treatments for people in need. Unfortunately, when prescription errors occur due to substandard care, they can have life-altering consequences for those affected. If you have experienced this and been avoidably harmed, you may be wondering, ‘Can I sue my pharmacy if I was given the wrong medication?’ Thankfully, our friendly advisors are here to help you determine whether you have a case to make a compensation claim.
At Legal Helpline, our advisors understand that getting started with the medical negligence claims process can sound intimidating if you’ve never navigated it before. In light of this, advisors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide a personalised service and a prompt response to any queries you might have. They offer a free consultation service, which could help you start your pharmacy claim by connecting you with one of our experienced No Win No Fee solicitors from our panel. If you claim with one of them, you’ll benefit from a range of tailored services that will prioritise your needs and ensure you stay in control of the claims process from start to finish.
Your Need To Know Questions Answered
- Can I get compensation for a medication error? Yes, you could receive medication error compensation provided that you can demonstrate that a pharmacy was negligent, directly resulting in you being avoidably harmed.
- What are some examples of pharmacy negligence? Pharmacy negligence may include dose miscalculations, as well as the wrong medication being given due to misread or misprinted prescriptions.
- How do you complain about a pharmacy? Every pharmacy should have a complaints procedure, and you may also be able to escalate to the owner of the facility.
- What to do if a pharmacy makes a mistake? You should seek medical attention and gather evidence by retaining the packaging, prescription and any related documents.
- What are the consequences of pharmacy errors? Pharmacy errors can worsen pre-existing conditions and lead to additional harm, such as organ damage and permanent disabilities.
Select A Section:
- Can I Sue My Pharmacy For Giving Me The Wrong Prescription?
- Evidence You’ll Need To Make A Wrong Medication Claim
- Prescription Errors – Examples
- Prescription Error Claims – How Long Do I Have?
- Compensation For Medical Negligence
- Can I Sue My Pharmacy With A No Win No Fee Solicitor?
- Supporting Information
Can I Sue My Pharmacy For Giving Me The Wrong Prescription?
In order to sue a pharmacist, you must satisfy the eligibility criteria for medical negligence claims. When you seek medical attention, whether from a doctor, nurse or pharmacist, you are automatically owed a duty of care.
This means that to prevent you from suffering any avoidable harm, they must provide you with the correct standard of care and treatment. The steps that medical professionals are expected to take can differ between professionals, but all must meet a minimum standard of care.
The General Pharmaceutical Council sets the standards and gives guidance to pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacies. As part of these standards, pharmacists are responsible for ensuring that the medicines prescribed are suitable as well as advising other medical professionals about safe and effective medicine use.
If you suffer harm that could have been avoided because a pharmacist breached their duty of care, you might be eligible to make a pharmacy negligence claim.
If you’d like to find out whether or not you could sue a pharmacy for negligence, please get in touch with an advisor from our team. They can assess whether you have a valid case for pharmacy errors.
Evidence You’ll Need To Make A Wrong Medication Claim
If a pharmacy gives you the wrong prescription, you could receive a settlement for the wrong prescription if you could prove you suffered harm due to a breach of duty of care.
The pharmacy giving the wrong medications could occur due to:
- Pharmacist not checking the medication to ensure it is correct.
- Not checking the prescription against other medications the patient is taking.
Evidence you could use to support harm caused when the pharmacy gave you the wrong pills could include:
- Copies of your prescription along with a sample.
- Other medical records, such as hospital records.
- Witness contact details, such as a pharmacy technician who saw what happened.
You may wish to consult a No Win No Fee solicitor specialising in medical negligence to discuss other forms of evidence you might have to support your claim.
Call our advisors for free advice about what evidence you could use if the pharmacy gives you the wrong prescription.
Prescription Errors – Examples
One of the reasons why a medical negligence lawyer could be able to process a claim on behalf of a patient is due to the pharmacist dispensing entirely the wrong medication. There are a number of ways that such mistakes can be made, for example:
- Changes to a regular prescription – some people visit the same pharmacy week after week, year after year, to collect exactly the same prescription. There is a danger here that if a doctor changes that prescription, the pharmacy staff might not notice, as they are used to preparing the same medication every time, for the same patient.
- Misprinted prescriptions – when a pharmacist is handed a prescription by a patient, they use this prescription to dispense the correct medication. When a mistake on a prescription takes place or a misprint during the printing process occurs, this could cause the pharmacist to dispense the wrong medication.
- Picking errors – a pharmacist keeps a wide range of medications in stock, all stored neatly on shelves. Staff then pick the correct medication to make up a prescription from this stock. A member of the pharmacy staff could make a mistake. For example, reading the name of a medication wrongly. The result could be that the wrong medication is dispensed.
If you have been given the wrong medication by a pharmacist, and this has had a negative effect on your health, you could make a claim. Call our claims team to find out how we can help you.
Prescription Error Claims – How Long Do I Have?
When claiming settlements for a wrong prescription, it’s important to be aware of how long you have to do so. In accordance with the Limitation Act 1980, you generally have 3 years in which to start a claim. This time window can begin from the date your health was affected.
With claims involving factors such as prescription errors, this date can be a difficult one to work out. So, you can use the date you became aware that medical negligence affected your health. This is called the date of knowledge and needs to be supported by evidence, such as your medical records.
There are two exceptions to this time limit:
- If the affected party is under 18 years old
- Individuals without the mental capacity to claim themselves
In both of these circumstances, the 3-year time limit is suspended. It resumes in the event that the person harmed becomes able to claim themselves through coming of age or becoming mentally capable of doing so. If a claim is to be made while the time limit is suspended, a litigation friend must be appointed to do so on their behalf.
How Long Does It Take To Get Pharmacy Negligence Compensation?
Pharmacy medication error claims are varied by nature, which is why we cannot predict how long it will take to settle your claim. Legal professionals must account for the unique factors impacting a claim.
For example, if you are claiming special damages for lost income, they may need to evaluate a future loss of income if you have not yet recovered from your injuries and returned to work.
Other factors that could affect the time scale of your claim include:
- Whether or not the defending party accepts liability
- Whether your claim is settled outside of court or not
- If your claim has to go to court, the court schedule may be busy
- The amount and type of evidence that you need to strengthen your medical negligence claim
- The number and severity of your injuries
- The extent of the financial harm you have suffered
You can contact a Legal Helpline advisor at any time for more information on how long it could take to claim. They can also address queries such as ‘Can I sue a pharmacy?’ and explain what to do if a pharmacy gives you the wrong medication. Furthermore, they can provide you with a free case assessment to outline what a potential compensation award could cover.
Compensation For Medical Negligence
If you make a successful claim for medical negligence, your prescription error compensation could consist of two parts. These are general and special damages.
General damages compensate you for the harm you have suffered due to a medical professional breaching their duty of care. To help when assigning value to prescription error claims, legal professionals may refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This is a document that lists guideline compensation brackets for different types of harm you could suffer.
In our table below, we look at a few figures from the JCG. It should be noted that the figure in the top row is not taken from the JCG but included to help illustrate how more than one very serious illness and incurred expenses can be compensated for in a successful pharmacy negligence claim. As every case is different, it does not represent what your settlement could be, should your claim be successful. Therefore, you should only refer to this table as a guide.
| Injury | Info | Compensation Bracket |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple severe forms of harm and special damages | Incurred expenses can encompass lost wages, home adaptations, and care costs. | Up to £500,000+ |
| Kidney (a) | Causing permanent damage | £206,730 to £256,780 |
| Kidney (b) | Harming the function of the kidney | Up to £78,080 |
| Bowel (a) | Causing bowel control problems | Up to £224,790 |
| Bowel (b) | Loss of bowel function | Up to £183,190 |
| Bowel (c) | Passive bowel problems | In the region of £97,530 |
| Bowel (d) | Abdominal injury affecting a person's ability to eat | £54,420 to £85,100 |
| Bladder (a) | Loss of bowel and bladder function | Up to £224,790 |
| Bladder (b) | Loss of bladder control | Up to £171,680 |
| Bladder (c) | Causing bladder pain and control problems | £78,080 to £97,540 |
If you have any questions about how settlements for the wrong prescription in the UK are calculated, speak with one of the advisors from our team. They can also assess how much your wrong medication claim could be worth for free.
Special Damages, Loss Of Earnings And Costs Incurred
When you sue a pharmacy for wrong medication, if your claim is successful, the settlement you receive will be made up of a number of different types of damages. As an example:
- Special damages (these are to cover financial and other losses):
- Loss of long-term earning potential due to a reduced ability to work in the future, or possibly not being able to work at all.
- Loss of income if you had to take time off work and lost out on your income, either in full or partially.
- Private medical costs, if you had to pay for any private treatment that the NHS could not provide.
- The cost of hiring a nurse to take care of you at home.
- Travel costs if you had to travel to deal with your claim or to receive treatment.
If you would like to know what kinds of damages might be applicable based on your own circumstances, then please speak to our team today.
Can I Sue My Pharmacy With A No Win No Fee Solicitor?
Our panel of solicitors have years of experience with medical negligence claims, and could help you with your prescription error claim. Prescription errors can cause significant harm to your well-being and everyday life, and as such, you may be interested in making a claim.
By offering their services through a kind of No Win No Fee contract known as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), a solicitor on our panel can help you with your claim without taking any upfront fees for their work. Similarly, should you choose to work with a No Win No Fee solicitor from our panel, they won’t take a fee for their services if your claim fails.
If your prescription error claim succeeds, then a success fee will be deducted from your settlement award. Your solicitor takes this as a small, legally capped percentage, which helps make sure that the larger share of compensation goes to you.
Our advisors are here to help. When you contact our team, they can offer a free evaluation of your claim. Should one of our advisors find your claim valid, they could potentially connect you with a solicitor from our panel. To get started:
- Call us on 0333 000 0729
- Contact us online
- Use the live chat feature
Supporting Information
These external links might provide you with some useful information:
- Standards For Pharmacists
- UK Government Information On Medication Errors
- UK Government Steps Taken To Reduce Pharmacy Errors
You could also read these other guides for some useful information:
