A girl of 12 ended up in hospital twice after taking insulin that was more than a year past its use-by date.

On each occasion diabetic Britney Phelps had injected herself with the insulin pen she kept by her bedside at the family’s home in Cobham Rise, Gillingham.

When she was admitted to Medway Maritime Hospital for the second time, nurses asked her mum Tina Simpson to bring in the insulin Britney had taken.

It was then noticed the expiry date on the box and the pen was January 2011.

Mrs Simpson, 40, who picked up the repeat prescription from the Sturdee Avenue Pharmacy on February 16 this year, said: “To be honest, you put your trust in professional people like pharmacists and I never thought to check the expiry date.

“What happened to Britney was very scary. At one point I thought I was losing her, She went grey, like a little old lady. She couldn’t walk and was totally dehydrated.

Mrs Simpson has since had several visits from representatives from the pharmacy. She has also received two letters of apology.

"she went grey, like a little old lady. she couldn’t walk and was totally dehydrated…” – mum tina simpson

One, signed from the pharmacy superintendent, said: “We apologise for the problems we have caused to you and your daughter, since this has happened, we would like to inform you, we have now put in place many precautions so that nothing like that will happen again.”

Another signed by V. Mangal said : “Please accept my sincere apologies for the dispensing error that occurred at our pharmacy whereby you received insulin Levemir on prescription collected on 16/02/12.

"It is always our aim to provide an excellent service and it is truly a matter of regret that on this occasion we failed to do so.”

When contacted this week, Mr Mangal said: “I simply can’t give you an explanation. This has never happened to us before and it won’t happen again. We have been to see the family and have changed our procedures.”

Alison Issott, chief pharmacist for NHS Kent and Medway said; “We asked for and have received a report from the pharmacy setting out what went wrong in this case.

“Our monitoring visits to this pharmacy have found no concerns in recent years.”