Decision Report 201304471

Summary

Mrs C complained that when her medical practice increased the dosage of her medication, it had side effects on both her heart rate and blood pressure. The practice said that they had acted in line with the appropriate guidelines when doing so. Mrs C remained unhappy and brought her complaint to us.

As part of our investigation we took independent advice from one of our medical advisers, who is a GP. He considered Mrs C's medical records and confirmed that the practice had decided to increase the dosage because of blood test results, and that the increased dosage was in keeping with standard practice in most GP surgeries. He also said that the internal systems the practice had in place to review Mrs C's medication in future were in line with good practice. As such, although we recognised that the change in dosage had affected Mrs C, we found no evidence to suggest that the practice acted unreasonably in prescribing this.