Three Swans Surgery

News:

Out of Hours
If you need urgent advice outside normal surgery hours (6.30 p.m. – 8.00 a.m. weekdays, weekends and Bank Holidays) – please telephone South Wiltshire Out of Hours Service, 01980 626226 where experienced staff, including Nurses, will deal with each call and ensure urgent medical care is provided. Telephone calls are recorded.

Test Results
Test results are generally available between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Blood tests usually take 5 working days unless your doctors tells you otherwise, x-rays 10 days and cervical smears 2 months to be reported by the hospital

Home Visits
Home visits are available for the bed bound and terminally ill. If you need a home visit, please telephone before 10.00 a.m. so that the doctors can plan their rounds. It is not dangerous to bring ill children to the surgery and in doing so a more rapid assessment may be made. If in doubt, phone for advice

Announcements

31 Jan - 01 Mar
National Heart Month

Everyone’s going Red for Heart for National Heart Month this February. It’s all in aid of the British Heart Foundation and we’d love you to join in.

01 Jan - 28 Feb
Ovarian Cancer Awareness

Our aim is to improve survival rates for women with ovarian cancer. We can only achieve this with your support – so get involved!

BBC Health

Backless hospital gown redesigned

Backless hospital gowns get a Hollywood-style makeover to preserve patients' dignity.

Fertile forties pregnancy warning

Experts fear older women are ditching contraception in the mistaken belief that fertility wanes at a certain age.

Social care flat fee plan denied

Health Secretary Andy Burnham denies planning a £20,000 compulsory inheritance levy to pay for social care in England.

'Third-hand smoke' risk warning

Lingering residue from tobacco smoke that clings to upholstery, clothing and the skin releases cancer-causing agents, warn experts.

First Lady tackles child obesity

First Lady Michelle Obama launches a nationwide campaign to tackle child obesity, which she says threatens America's future.

Brain injury linked to gambling

Californian scientists think they may have discovered the part of the brain which makes people fear losing money.

Cancer nurses funding row

Gordon Brown has given more details of Labour's plans to provide dedicated one-to-one specialist nursing for everyone in England diagnosed with cancer.

Eye worries for young diabetics

Doctors say more younger diabetics are needing sight-saving treatment for a condition older patients normally develop.

Exercise 'can cut gallstone risk'

Doing lots of exercise drastically cuts the risk of developing painful gallstones, UK researchers have found.

Storing up sleep could combat tiredness say scientists

New research from the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research suggests that sleep can be stored up in advance to raise alertness after a period of sleep deprivation.

Yahoo Health

Autism risks detailed in children of older mothers (AP)

A boy with autism at a treament center. Women over 40 are nearly twice as likely to give birth to an autistic child than a mother under 30, researchers said in a study that found more evidence of links between autism and maternal age.(AFP/File/Liu Jin)

AP - A woman's chance of having a child with autism increase substantially as she ages, but the risk may be less for older dads than previously suggested, a new study analyzing more than 5 million births found.

Bad malaria pills in Africa raise resistance fears (AP)

AP - High rates of the most effective type of malaria-fighting drugs sold in three African countries are poor quality — including nearly half the pills sampled in Senegal — raising fears of increased drug resistance that could wipe out the last weapon left to battle a disease that kills 1 million people each year, according to a U.S. report released Monday.

Even if you're careful, drugs can end up in water (AP)

A man dumps a bag of trash at the town landfill, Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010, in Bath, Maine. The Kennebec River can be seen n the background. Discarded drugs have been found in water at this land fill and two others in Mane, confirming suspicions that medications thrown into household trash are ending up in water that drains through waste, according to the state's environmental agency. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

AP - The federal government advises throwing most unused or expired medications into the trash instead of down the drain, but they can end up in the water anyway, a study from Maine suggests.

China finds 170 more tons of tainted milk powder (AP)

FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2010 file photo, business administration officers check dairy products in a supermarket in Rizhao, in east China's Shandong province. China has found another 170 tons of tainted milk powder in an emergency crackdown that has made it increasingly clear many products discovered in the country's 2008 milk scandal were repackaged for sale instead of destroyed. (AP Photo, File)

AP - The discovery has punched a 170-ton hole in China's promises to overhaul its food safety system. Officials say they've found yet another case where large amounts of tainted milk powder from the country's 2008 scandal that should have been destroyed were instead repackaged.

Is the US swine flu epidemic over? (AP)

Graphic shows reported weekly swine flu cases since Sept. 5,

AP - If the U.S. swine flu epidemic isn't over, it certainly looks as if it's on its last legs. While federal health officials are not ready to declare the threat has passed and the outbreak has run its course, they did report Friday that for the fourth week in a row, no states had widespread flu activity. U.S. cases have been declining since late October.

FDA concerned dissolvable tobacco appeals to kids (AP)

In this photo made Nov. 4, 2009, Lawrence Deyton, head of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, is interviewed at his office in Rockville, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

AP - The Food and Drug Administration is saying in letters to two tobacco companies that flavored, dissolvable tobacco products — that the agency compares with candy and says contain a lot of nicotine — could be particularly appealing to kids and young adults.

Obamas take on problem of obese children (Reuters)

Reuters - Alarmed that nearly a third of U.S. children are obese or overweight -- and likely to stay that way all their lives -- President Barack Obama launched an initiative on Tuesday to roll back the numbers and put his wife in charge of promoting it.

Men have key role in ending female circumcision: experts (AFP)

AFP - Experts and workers on the ground said Friday that men had a key role to play in the fight against female circumcision in Africa, a day before the International Day against Female Genital Mutilation.

Clinical Trials Update: Feb. 8, 2010 (HealthDay)

HealthDay - (HealthDay News) -- Here are the latest clinical trials, courtesy of ClinicalConnection.com:

Health Tip: Protect Your Child at Day Care (HealthDay)

HealthDay - (HealthDay News) -- Children who attend day care are at increased risk of getting sick or acquiring an infection.

WHO Swine Flu

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 86

As of 31 January 2010, worldwide more than 209 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 15174 deaths.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 85

As of 24 January 2010, worldwide more than 209 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 14711 deaths.

Statement of the World Health Organization on allegations of conflict of interest and 'fake' pandemic

22 January 2010 -- Providing independent advice to Member States is a very important function of the World Health Organization (WHO). We take this work seriously and guard against the influence of any improper interests. The WHO influenza pandemic policies and response have not been improperly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 84

As of 17 January 2010, worldwide more than 209 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 14142 deaths.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 83

As of 10 January 2010, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 13554 deaths.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 82

As of 3 January 2010, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza (H1N1) 2009, including at least 12799 deaths.

Successes and challenges of 2009

30 December 2009 -- The headline that dominated the year was easily the H1N1 pandemic. On 11 June, 2009, WHO declared the start of the first influenza pandemic since 1968. In this episode we listen to WHO's Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, discuss the successes and challenges of 2009.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 81

As of 27 December 2009, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 12220 deaths.

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 80

As of 20 December 2009, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 11516 deaths.

Comparing deaths from pandemic and seasonal influenza

Efforts to assess the severity of the H1N1 influenza pandemic sometimes compare numbers of confirmed deaths with those estimated for seasonal influenza, either nationally or worldwide. Such comparisons are not reliable for several reasons and can be misleading.

Announcements

BBC Health

Yahoo Health

WHO Swine Flu

Welcome to the Three Swans Surgery

Practice Information