Man with epilepsy in Leeds died in fall after pharmacy ran out of drug
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David Crompton, 44, was reportedly given ‘IOU’ for prescription medication before fatal incident. A man with epilepsy died in a fall after his pharmacy reportedly left him an “IOU” for his prescribed medication when it ran out of an anti-epileptic drug.
David Crompton, a 44-year-old man in Leeds, died on 13 December after a fall downstairs resulted in a loss of oxygen to his brain and a cardiac arrest. A coroner’s report on Crompton’s death, originally reported in P3Pharmacy, found that his epilepsy was a contributing factor, as he was prescribed Tegretol but left without the medication after his pharmacy, Midway Pharmacy in Pudsey, was unable to supply it.
It was the second time he had been left without the drug after the pharmacy was unable to supply it. The first was in April 2024, when Crompton was left without medication for about 10 days, during which time he had a first fall. The West Yorkshire senior coroner Kevin McLoughlin said in his report: “The evidence given by family members at the inquest was that when the pharmacy was unable to supply the prescribed Tegretol medication, it was left to them to contact other pharmacies to see if they could obtain it, rather than for the pharmacy to search for supplies.
“The inquest was informed that following the April 2024 episode, hospital specialists commented [to Mr Crompton] that the absence of Tegretol for around 10 days ‘will likely have contributed to your seizure activity’. It is questionable whether lessons were learned from this potentially dangerous interval.”.
