PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Yincent Tse
AU  - Nicola Vasey
AU  - Damneek Dua
AU  - Susan Oliver
AU  - Victoria Emmet
AU  - Ailsa Pickering
AU  - Emma Lim
TI  - The KidzMed project: teaching children to swallow tablet medication
AID  - 10.1136/archdischild-2019-317512
DP  - 2019 Oct 08
TA  - Archives of Disease in Childhood
PG  - archdischild-2019-317512
4099  - http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2019/10/08/archdischild-2019-317512.short
4100  - http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2019/10/08/archdischild-2019-317512.full
AB  - Tablets are safer, more convenient and cheaper than liquid medications. Children and young people (CYP) often remain on liquids due to habit, reluctance to change or staff and parents’ lack of knowledge about switching to tablets. We describe a quality improvement project to train staff and embed a system of converting eligible children to tablet medication. A series of tests of change were made including training, making kit available, publicity and developing team protocols. In 3 months, 21 out of 25 eligible CYP were successfully converted with added benefit of saving £46 588 per year. Switching children to tablets is simple but requires whole team engagement, culture change of expectations and available resources.