Section: Year 3: Practise Your Drug Calculations! | Numeracy for Nursing Practice | Open Essex

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  • Exploring Numeracy for Nursing

    Student nurse administering an injectionWelcome to the Numeracy Moodle page for the School of Health and Human Sciences.

    The resources on this page have been designed to address the numeracy requirements for the BSc in Nursing (Adult & Mental Health).


    There is also a resources page containing a reading list and links to some websites that you might find useful in supporting your studies.


    Don't forget, you've also got access to SafeMedicate.com, where you can practise some of these calculations at your own pace and in your own time.

    • News and Announcements Forum
    • Numeracy Forum
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      Please use this forum for:

      • Posting questions for response from peers or the Numeracy Tutor
      • Discussing numeracy strategies
      • Notifying typos, errors or broken links
      • Suggesting new resources
IV Infusions: Calculating Drip Rates in drops/min
Advanced and Complex Calculations

Year 3: Practise Your Drug Calculations!

  • Year 3: Practise Your Drug Calculations!

    MDCs infographicThe revision resources below contain examples of the kind of questions you can expect in the Numeracy and Drug Calculations section of the HS563 exam.

    The questions will cover:

    • SI Unit Conversions
    • Tablets
    • Liquid Medicines
    • Injections
    • Unit, Multiple Unit and Sub Unit Doses
    • Complex Calculations
    • Adult Nursing only: Intravenous infusions - flow rates (mLs/hr) and drip rates (drop/min)

    The resources are split into three sections:

    1. In-house resources, developed to help you prepare for University of Essex drug calculation exams. Please note that these resources do not yet cover intravenous infusions or complex calculations
    2. External e-learning resources
    3. Printable resources
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      University of Essex Resources

    • Unit Conversions - Test Yourself! File
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      Adult/Mental Health: Interactive, self-marking question generator.

      3.4 MB
    • Basic Drug Calculations Quiz
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      Adult/Mental Health: This interactive quiz covers tablets, liquid medicines and injections. It's a good starting point for revising the work that we did in Year 1, but you'll also need to use the more advanced resources.


    • Mental Health: 24 November Workshop Resources Folder
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      Mental Health: Slides, booklet and answers from revision workshop on 24 November

    • Adult Nursing: 17 November Revision Workshop Folder
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      Adult: Resources from the revision workshop on 17 November.

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      External E-learning Resources

    • Nottingham University Hospital Drug Calculations Pack URL
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      Adult/Mental Health: Pay careful attention to the format of this paper - virtual medication cupboard plus separate question paper.


      Mental Health only:  You do not need to learn how to do IV infusion calculations.

    • Nottingham University Hospital Answers - CALCULATIONS ONLY File
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      Worked answers to the drug calculations.

      Please note that I am not able to provide answers for aything other than the calculations in this instance. Also, please let me know if you disagree with any of my answers!

      989.7 KB
    • Safe Medicate URL
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      Adult/Mental Health: Our standard e-learning package for medication dosage calculations.

    • Queen's University Belfast - Drug Calculations URL
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      Adult/Mental Health: Extensive random question generator. Excellent resource for making sure that you know what you're doing!

    • NHS SN@P URL
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      Adult/Mental Health: SN@P stands for Standard Numeracy Assessment Process and is the NHS's own e-learning tool for numeracy skills. 

      User account needed - you'll need to set this up yourself; please do come to the office and see me if you want to do this, but are finding it difficult, I'd be happy to help!

    • Nursing Maths Quizzes (interactive) - Flinders University, Australia URL
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      Adult: All sections are relevant.

      Mental Health: Sections 1 - 4 are relevant.

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      Printable Resources

    • Maths Pack - University of Nottingham URL
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      Prefer to practise written questions? This paper, from the University of Nottingham, will be useful. You can download it and print it out.

      Adult: ALL sections are relevant

      Mental Health: All sections except the intravenous drip calculations are relevant.


    • University of Dundee Medciation Administration Workbook File
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      Lots more examples, practice questions and scenarios in this booklet, which goes way beyond calculations.

      Adult: ALL sections are relevant

      Mental Health: Section 1, A - C are relevant for calculations - lots of mental health examples in here.

      Sections 2 & 3 deal with the preparation for professional registration side of medications management. You may also find this useful for general revision.

      279.8 KB
    • Maths Pack: Nursing Essentials - University of Leeds File
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      More printables, this time from the University of Leeds.

      Adult/Mental Health: All sections are relevant

      312.1 KB
    • Maths pack: Unit Conversions - University of Leeds File
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      Adult/Mental Health: Printable resource pack all about conversions, from the University of Leeds.

      265.6 KB
    • Advanced and Complex Calculations File
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      Adult only: I have yet to find any evidence of NHS trusts setting questions quite this complex. 

      However, if you really want to stretch and challenge your calculation skills, this paper is the one for you!

      Answers are supplied; if you really can't work out how to solve one, drop me an email or book a tutorial session. I would also be interested to know your methods if you are able to solve questions 7 and 15 through to 19!

      71.0 KB
IV Infusions: Calculating Drip Rates in drops/min
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Advanced and Complex Calculations