The scenario

Dispensing assistant Tanya comes to pharmacy technician Vicky with a query on a prescription.

"The dose of this nystatin suspension is written as 4ml four times a day. The child it is for is only two years old, so that can’t be right, can it? I checked the information leaflet inside the box, and it says 1ml qds for a week, which kind of ties in with my assumption that the bottle is 30ml so it covers the course with a little bit extra included in case of spillages.

"I’ve checked with the little boy’s mum and she says it is for oral thrush, so nothing unusual there, and he’s otherwise healthy, she says, so I can’t think of anything there that would mean an increased dose. The strength of the actual product hasn’t changed, it’s still 100,000 units per ml. But the computer hasn’t flagged up the high dose as a problem. Am I missing something or has the doctor got it wrong?"