The world`s first `anytime` check-up booth is being tested at Southampton General Hospital to assess the heart`s health.

People with pacemakers can use the high-tech cubicle to make their own assessments without help from a nurse or doctor, or even booking an appointment, thus cutting waiting times and missed appointments.

Patients using the booth see green lights followed by two loud bleeps and a bullseye signal letting them know their data has transferred successfully. Staff can then access the data through a secure server and review the information downloaded from the pacemaker.

People with pacemakers routinely visit hospital once or twice a year for appointments. It is hoped the flexibility created by the booth will remove the added stress of needing to visit a GP first or request a slot to attend.

Professor John Morgan, a consultant cardiologist at the hospital, said: "We can free up patients who don`t need to see medical staff from having to attend clinics while focusing staff time on the minority of patients who actually need to see a doctor - an example of how the health service can improve the use of NHS resources."

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011

Women suspected of having ovarian cancer would be given blood tests to detect the disease in primary care under new guidelines set out by the health watchdog.

The test is already available on the NHS but it is currently only used by hospital specialists for women suspected of having ovarian cancer. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), however, says that giving GPs the opportunity to carry out the blood test at a much earlier stage will help to cut the number of people killed by the disease.

The survival rate of ovarian cancer is poor in the UK, with 65% of the 6,800 women diagnosed with the disease every year in the country dying within five years of their diagnosis. Giving the test, which costs about £20, to women sooner would give those found to have the disease a greater chance of survival by speeding up diagnosis and treatment.

Sean Duffy, a consultant gynaecologist at St James`s University Hospital, Leeds, and chairman of the Nice group that drew up the guidelines, urged a greater awareness of the key symptoms of ovarian cancer.

He said these included persistent abdominal bloating, feeling full in spite of only having a small amount to eat, pelvic or abdominal pain and needing to urinate urgently or more frequently.

Nice is recommending that GPs offer women, particularly those over 50 years old, the blood test designed to measure the level of a protein called CA125 in the blood if they experience these symptoms regularly.

"If the symptoms are persistent, don`t wait, act," he urged women.

"We are promoting the blood test to get women on the right cancer pathway as soon as possible.

"The symptoms as described can be vague, but if they are persistent they should not be ignored."

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011

Experts have claimed that using blood checks to screen UK immigrants for tuberculosis could improve detection rates.

They said that if the measure was used to replace the current chest X-ray screening procedure more than 90% of imported latent TB would be detected.

The research by the Imperial College London team said that new blood testing would allow people with imported latent TB to be treated with antibiotics.

They said that a course of antibiotics would help prevent patients` latent tuberculosis becoming active.

TB is caused by a bacterial infection which is normally asymptomatic, but around one in 10 infections leads to active disease, which attacks the lungs and kills around half of people affected.

The incidence of TB has risen dramatically in Britain over the last decade, particularly because of a 98% increase in cases among people who move to the country from overseas, the research said.

Current UK policy requires all immigrants from countries with a TB incidence higher than 40 in 100,000 people per year to have a chest X-ray on arrival to check for active TB, although very few immigrants have the active disease on arrival.

However, a substantial proportion of immigrants are carriers of latent TB which, though initially silent and non-infectious, often progresses to full-blown TB within a few years of arrival in the UK, researchers said.

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011

The Clostridium difficile (C diff) hospital bug raises the death risk for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) six-fold, a study has revealed.

Scientists have urged the screening of all IBD patients being admitted for their own protection after finding a strong link between IBD, C diff, and death in hospital.

Examining NHS admission records from 2002 to 2008, the researchers found IBD patients infected with C diff were six times more likely to die than those uninfected. After 30 days, their mortality rate was as high as 25%.

The findings, reported in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, also showed that IBD patients with C diff had longer stays in hospital and were almost twice as likely to need gastrointestinal surgery. Typically they remained in hospital for 26 days, compared with five days for patients not carrying C diff.

Dr Sonia Saxena, one of the researchers from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said they wanted high-risk patients to be screened on admission for quicker diagnosis and treatment.

IBD, which includes Crohn`s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects about 240,000 people in the UK. The autoimmune conditions cause abdominal pain and diarrhoea, which can require hospital treatment.

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011