A FOUR-YEAR-OLD suffered burns after being given ear drops to treat an eye infection.

Archie Battersbee had just started school at Prince Avenue Primary, in Southend, when he developed conjunctivitis.

His doctor, at Southchurch Boulevard Central Surgery, prescribed eye drops to treat the condition.

His mother, Hollie Dance, took the prescription to Boots, in Southchurch Road, that day and was given ear drops instead of the prescribed eye drops in error.

When she gave them to Archie, he screamed in pain and ended up with a burn around his right eye.

Miss Dance, who lives in Alton Gardens, said: “I put them in and Archie was absolutely screaming, so I read the box closely and it said they were ear drops.

“I Googled it straight away and found a story about the same thing happening with Boots where it burned the patient’s eye.

“Fortunately, I only used it once on Archie, but they’re ten times as strong as the eye drops so even then you could see it had burned the skin around the corner of his eye.”

She returned to her doctor the next day who confirmed Boots had not given her what had been prescribed.

She added: “I went back to kick off at Boots and made a formal complaint.

“They have apologised and given us the right drops, but unsurprisingly Archie was scared of anything else in his eye. I managed to get them in and he said it didn’t hurt at all, which is what it should’ve been like all along.”

In 2012 the same mistake was made at a Boots branch in Nottingham, leaving a sixyear- old girl with a burning pain and swollen eyes.

Boots has apologised to the family and say it has brought in extra safety measures since the incident.

A spokesman said: “We would like to once again offer our sincere apologies to the family.

“At Boots UK we treat any incident involving patient safety with the utmost importance.

After this incident, a thorough investigation was conducted and appropriate remedial action was undertaken to ensure any necessary measures were implemented.”