Section: Year 1: 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
Drug Calculations: Using the Formula
IV Infusions: Calculating a Flow Rate in mL/hr

Year 1: Practise Your Drug Calculations

  • Year 1: Practise Your Drug Calculations

    MDC calculations infographicThese revision resources contain examples of the type of questions tht you can expect in the Numeracy and Medication Dosage Calculations exam for HS541. Accuracy is essential, and it's important to think about your exam technique and to be very aware of the areas that you find most challenging. Remember, these are practise questions only - you may need to go to the other sections to find tutorial resources to help you to develop your skills. Alternatively, get in touch with me if you would like some additional support, either 1:1 or in small groups.

    Click here to request a 1:1 tutorial.

    The questions will cover:

    • SI Unit Conversion
    • Tablets and Capsules
    • Liquid Medicines
    • Injections
    • Unit, Multiple Unit and Sub Unit Doses

    The resources are split into three sections:

    1. In-house resources, developed to help you prepare for University of Essex drug calculation exams.
    2. External e-learning resources
    3. Printable resources
    Good luck!
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      University of Essex Resources

    • Unit Conversions - Test Yourself! File
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      Interactive, self-marking question generator.

      3.4 MB
    • Practise Your Skills Quiz
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      External E-learning Resources

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      The drug calculations site at Queen's University Belfast is one of the best interactive random question generators available. However, it's drawback is that in order to generate such a wide range of numbers, they're not always clinically realistic. So - brilliant for developing your numeracy skills, but use with caution and don't become de-sensitised to odd looking doses and quantities.

      Their Year 1 curriculum is slightly different from ours; remember, our exam will only focus on SI unit conversions, tablets, liquid medicines and injections. It's a good idea to develop competence in the other areas though - numeracy skills all link together eventually!

    • Queen's University Belfast Conversions URL
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    • Queen's University Belfast Basic Drug Calculations URL
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    • Queen's University Belfast - Tablets URL
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    • Queen's University Belfast Intermediate Drug Calculations URL
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      These questions are more challenging than Year 1 questions.
    • NHS SN@P URL
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      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 - Flinders University, Australia URL
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      Quizzes 1 - 4 are relevant for the HS541 exam.

    • SafeMedicate.com URL
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      Printable Resources

    • Maths pack: Unit Conversions - University of Leeds File
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      Printable resource pack all about conversions, from the University of Leeds.

      265.6 KB
    • 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.

      Don't worry about Section 4 - we don't do intravenous work until Year 2!

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

      312.1 KB
Drug Calculations: Using the Formula
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IV Infusions: Calculating a Flow Rate in mL/hr