Help: Gave her overdose medication

Obviously i did not do it deliberately, i had no intenstions to give an overdose, it just happend accidently, like i cannot even explain myself here as to why.

I am not prone to making those kind of mistakes because i have been administering the same sort of medication to the same person every day last week.

It was just that moment in time where i zoned out and accidently gave an overdose.

I know i cannot afford to make these kind of mistakes but do you think being sacked for this is ustifiable? a suspension to me sounds more justifiable.

Anyways, i am scared AF

Either a sacking or suspension I wouldn't object to.

yes, you didn't do it deliberately ..but intentional or not the consequences could have been very serious. I would not be surprised if this fell under gross misconduct.

Personally I would not feel comfortable with you looking after my mother/gran after having made such a mistake. I would insist on a new nurse/carer for them.

It's like a Coach driver falling asleep at the wheel. Yes he probably didn't mean to do it, but the consequences could be severe..

Yes i understand the consequences could be severe.

The person seems to be ok, she was supported by her daughter.

I sort of know how it feels like, for example, the trust is broken now.

I would request a new carer too if this happened to my mum or grandma.

However a sacking to me for this sounds unreasonable eventhough it might fall under the category of gross misconduct.

I know a person who is a carer and got sacked.

He is now working in a call centre. I do not know how easy/hard it is to get another job in that same field once you've been sacked.

I think he got sacked over lateness or something like that...

You could have killed them, I think a sack is justifiable
I wouldn't want someone working with vulnerable people who could almost kill them just by zoning out, you shouldn't be zoning out on your job. This isn't like oh I forgot to mop the floor, this is actual death we're talking about.

Sacked over lateness? sounds a bit oddd, however, it he was late on multiple occasions then maybe his sacking was justifiable.

Yes, i could have killed my client.

she was fine in the end.

Should i call the agency myslef and explain myself or leave it to the daugher who said she will notify them.

Make sure you self-report to your superiors. All depends on the daughter and how much of an ******* she is but if handled internally hopefully you'll just receive extra supervision.

Since you have barely been trained, and not been supervised, tbe agency should be liable too

What hapens when a person gets sacked? since i am releitevly new to the role what will hsppen to me/. will i still be able to get another job as a carer ina differemt agency or irrelevant jobs to care work

I am scared AF.

I have administed the same medication before to the same client with no problems whatsoever.

The overdose was just a mistake i made yesterday.

yes, i know, regardless of t being an accidednt i am in the wrong and there should be consequences accordingly but a sack does not sound justifiable.

The daugher of the client is a bit of a **** so i am scared AF

The person seems to be ok, she was supported by her daughter.

I am relitively new to the role and there was no training with regards to medication.

The training i underwent was food hygine safety and manual handling, nothing to do with medication.

In fact, before i started the job, i had no idea one of my responsibilities would be to give out medication to the clients i see(obviously only those who take medications)

I always thought medication is something that should be administered by a nurse or someone like the parent etc of the person i am looking after or i should be suprevised.

I know i cannot afford to be making these sort of mistakes and i should be sanctionedaccordinly but i do not know my agencies policy about this situation.

The daugher of the person was there and said she will tell the agency about this etc.

So does this mean i should dtill tell the agency myself? The thought of having to explain the whole stuation to my manger is giving me butterflies.

I am scared AF

This is why I and many other nurses have a problem with non registered healthcare staff administering medications, particularly in the community where the standard of training delivered by care agencies varies greatly. Drug errors happen, even in the most controlled areas of clinical practice. As I already said, you should have a policy on this and thus will dictate what you should do.

I'm quite frankly horrified that you've been expected to administer drugs without any training at all, even though I imagine it was a blister pack you've given these drugs from so they've been technically dispensed by the pharmacy, you've administered these drugs.

You need to report this to the agency yourself, the longer you leave it, the worse it will reflect upon you. This is an incident, where harm has been caused, or could have been caused to a client your agency delivers care for.

"The person seems to be ok": however are they? You've had minimal training so are you best placed to be aware of any potential ill effects of this error. In a hospital, you'd have to get the patient assessed by a doctor.

I don't know what your employers polIcy is on this, or how harsh care agencies are when dealing with staff who've made medication errors. You need to speak to your employer and get a copy of their medication administration policy. You should have had training and a competency based assessment prior to being permitted to administer drugs.

If you're worried about talking to your manager why don't you write down your account of what happened before you go in, so if you find yourself getting flustered you've got it all in writing ready.

yes, it was medication from the blister pack. i gave the client the miday day one alongside the tea time one.

I feel like i have not explained the situation properly.

Me and my collegaue were ate the clients house. We did everything as usual. We are about to leave in a rush until my colleague asked me if i promted the clients medication(since i started the job a week in i have been the medication prompter) i decided to check and then just went along to administer the medication
My mind was completely lost at that time. It's only when my work colleague double checked she realised that two puches of the medication pack were empty instead of one which is when i realised the great mistakes i have done. The daughetr was there all along and i had a telling off from her etc and that she was goining to report me to the agency. I obviously apologised etc but what can i do? the deed has been done.

I am not justyfying anything i did because obviously it was very wrong of me.

I do not know the policy of the agency with regards to my predicament.

However, i understand the seriousness of the situations and the consequences that would follow as a result of that.

I have phoned my agency and the woman who normally picks up the phne was not there. It was a different woman on the phopne and she just told me to be careful next time by double checking the medication before i promt it. I honestly did not expect her response to be so soft. However, i do not know what will happen nexzt as she may report it to the head care co-ordinator(head manager)

It would look better if you came out with it rather than than them hearing it from the daughter...

then again, what are the chances the daughter was bluffing and was not going to report you? If she is bluffing and you report yourself then you're obviously in a worse position now than if you kept quiet and the daughter kept quiet.

So you need to decide how likely it is the daughter will contact them..

I contacted my agency today and the woman over the phone(not the usual person who picks up the phone) said that i should be careful by double checking the medication i give. Moreover she said i should be supervised.

Her response is fair enough but i expected much more.

Maybe she will take it further to the head care coordinator ( head manager) but the way she spoke to me was calm without any shouting whatsoever.

I obviously cannot take her response lightly etc as what i did is not acceptable or justifiable in any way shape or form.