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The pharmacy chain Allied Pharmacies has said it has put in place measures to prevent medicines supply errors in future after a patient was given the wrong medication at one of its branches and fell ill.

The chain, which has more than 50 pharmacies, told Independent Community Pharmacist it has given its staff additional training after its branch in Jaywick, Essex, accidentally gave 67-year-old Dennis Moore pregabalin instead of gabapentin.

According to the BBC, a box of pregabalin had a pharmacy sticker for gabapentin which Moore takes three times a day to manage his epilepsy. He had never taken pregabalin before.

His wife Karen told the BBC he “crashed out for three hours” after taking the medicine and started “seeing double,” struggled to “walk straight and was holding on to everything,” when he woke up.

She called NHS 111 and was told to take her husband to hospital but he insisted he wanted to “ride it out.” He later said he felt “let down” by the pharmacy.

Allied Pharmacies told ICP it also took steps to ensure its staff are fully compliant with its “reporting, review and mitigation processes.”

“Immediate adjustments were also made to medicine placement and separation in branch where the names of medicines contain similarities,” it added.

In a statement, the chain said it was “very sorry for the distress experienced by Mr Moore and reassured that he suffered no lasting harm.”

“Over a billion prescriptions are issued nationally every year and Royal Pharmaceutical Society best practice demands that pharmacies log and address the very small proportion of errors made in the provision of medicine,” they said, insisting its Jaywick branch “took immediate steps to determine what happened and has already acted to ensure that its systems are robust.”

GPhC: We're following up on this concern

The General Pharmaceutical Council told ICP it is looking into the incident. The regulator said: “We require all pharmacies to ensure the way in which pharmacy services are delivered safeguards the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and the public.

“We encourage people to report concerns they may have about a pharmacy or pharmacy professional via our website at pharmacyregulation.org. Whilst this pharmacy met all standards when it was inspected this year, in line with our intelligence-led approach to our enforcement activity, we are following up on this concern.”