Wrong dose, overdose and medicine errors

Contacts about wrong medicine, wrong dose, double dosing or overdose require prompt action. Depending on the situation the patient may need urgent clinical assessment, poison advice, pharmacy input, emergency care or monitoring.

Reception staff must not judge whether an amount taken is safe. Preserve the caller’s wording and escalate the contact through your local process.

Listen or look for

• "I took too many", "double dose", "wrong strength" or "wrong tablet".
• Wrong medicine supplied, dispensed, administered or taken.
• A child taking an adult medicine or adult dose.
• A frail adult, care-home resident or person with learning disability affected by a medicine error.
• Overdose with drowsiness, confusion, vomiting, collapse, breathing difficulty or self-harm concern.
• Anticoagulant, insulin, opioid, sedative or other high-risk medicine error.

Keep the facts clear

Collect: medicine name, strength, amount taken, time taken, who took it, the person’s age or vulnerabilities, current symptoms, and whether emergency services, NHS 111, a pharmacy, poison services or another clinician have already been contacted.

Do not tell the patient to skip, repeat, reduce or increase the next dose unless that instruction comes from an approved clinical route.

Error and overdose note

Medicine error contacts need factual information and urgent ownership, not reassurance or dose advice from reception.