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Numeracy for Nursing & Midwifery


A selection of resources to help you brush up on your numeracy skills for performing drug calculations.


Units of Measurement 

The first thing to do when carrying out a drug calculation is to check that the stock dose and required dose are measured in the same units. If they are not, you will need to convert to the same units. 

Converting between Units

Fractions & Decimals

Cancelling down fractions and knowing how to express some common fractions as decimals can make your calculations much easier and may mean you do not need to do any explicit multiplication or division.

Some common fractions as decimals

Decimals (Mathcentre)*

How to simplify fractions (BBC Bitesize)*

Cancelling down fractions 

Cross cancelling fractions


Multiplication & Division

Sometimes you will need to multiply or divide. There are a few methods to choose from to do this and you can find out about them here:

Multiplication (BBC Bitesize)*

Short & Long Division (BBC Bitesize)*

Rounding

At the end of your calculation, you may need to round your answer to a certain number of decimal places or to a whole number.

Rounding


Please Note - External Content

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