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Coronavirus – should we be wearing masks?

There seems to be a lot of confusion around whether or not the general public should be using face masks and given that different countries have different advice, it is easy to see why. Current guidance here in the UK is that it is not recommended that the general public wear masks. That advice is based on the fact that …

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The Truth About Coronavirus Testing in the UK

I have received a lot of questions this week regarding testing for coronavirus, so thought it might be a good subject to tackle here. At the time of writing (Monday April 6th), the UK has done 208,837 tests for coronavirus. Of those 51,608 were positive. All of these were Antigen tests. There are two types of test for coronavirus The …

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Coronavirus – Fake News

There are  several email and Facebook posts doing the rounds, usually claiming to be from a doctor relative of a friend of a friend, which of course gives credence to the content, but most of what I have seen contains fake news, which could mean people believing they are safe and protected when they are not, so I thought, it …

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Pregnancy and coronavirus

Pregnancy is often a time of heightened anxiety. Every expectant Mum just wants to do the best for her unborn child. Today, pregnant women face an added anxiety in the form of coronavirus, so I thought I would to explain what we know so far about the virus and its effect on pregnancy. Pregnancy is a time when the immune …

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Coronavirus FAQs

Having spent the best part of 4 hours speaking to a number of different radio stations today, I am getting a real feel for the degree of confusion and anxiety that exists around coronavirus. I’m sorry I can’t answer everyone’s questions, there are simply too many, but I thought it might be useful to try to answer some of the …

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Coronavirus Guidance Made Easy

As you can imagine, my phone has been ringing off the hook recently with requests for media interviews and questions from friends and family. The coronavirus pandemic, and our knowledge of this disease, is changing literally by the hour and I know that is causing a lot of anxiety and confusion, so I thought I’d try to clarify a few …

Gloucestershire antibiotic prescribing down 8%

There is real concern in the medical world that we are running out of new antibiotics and as more resistant bugs, like MRSA and clostridium difficile, emerge this could have disastrous consequences for the health of the nation. Just 100 years ago, before the widespread use of antibiotics, life expectancy was much shorter than today and people didn’t die of …

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Sepsis Awareness

Here is my recent interview with the Sepsis UK trust, a charity dedicated to raising awareness of Sepsis- a potentially life threatening condition, early treatment can make all the difference.

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MRSA

I’ve heard that some of us carry the superbug MRSA and I’m really worried about catching it. How do you know if you’ve got it? If one of my family has it, can they pass it on? MRSA or methicillin resistant staphylococcus is a bacteria which lives on the skin and in the nose of healthy individuals without causing any …