As we hear of the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, covid-19 in New Zealand, we are receiving more and more enquiries about both this and the 'flu vaccine.

The 'Flu vaccine will not be available until 1st April this year.  We will be letting you know as soon as it comes into stock.  Having the whole family, especially children immunised is the best way to stop influenza spreading in our community.  Although the 'Flu vaccine provides NO protection against Covid-19, it does reduce the risk of getting sick and this will help both to ease worries over what may be a stressful period and of course the more people who are immunised, the fewer sick people will need to be managed in hospital, freeing resources in case there are large numbers of coronavirus cases.

Despite what you might hear in the media, this is NOT the zombie apocalypse and we are NOT all going to die.

We are receiving a few requests for information about how to manage the new virus that is making the news right now.  Although the chances are good that this will be a non-issue, there is a lot of public concern so we thought to bring you some information you could use to navigate the muddy waters.

Anyone paying the slightest attention to either of the last two General Elections could not fail to notice that the cost of visiting the GP was a key policy issue for pretty much every political party.  Each tried to outbid the other in offering lower costs, but is that actually A Good Thing?

We occasionally get asked if the alcohol in asthma inhalers can affect driving.  The answer is a resounding no.

A ripe banana contains five times more alcohol than even the most alcoholic inhaler available today - you would have to use 10 full inhalers to get the equivalent of one standard drink, so the alcohol cannot put you 'over the limit'

If you are wheezy enough to need to use an inhaler though, you should wait until the medication has worked before you drive anyway, so there is no chance any alcohol from the inhaler would be detected at a roadside check.

 A new study has shown a popular class of medication may be associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. 

We should like to stress that the risk if real, is VERY SMALL and if you are taking these medications you should continue to do so. 

Stopping them suddenly is very dangerous - if you are concerned, please make an appointment.  You should not stop taking the medication without discussing it with us first.

As a rule, we don't advertise on this site, but we thought that it was health-related and targetting a group of patients often neglected. 

Exercise is without doubt the best medicine, with proven benefits in preventing or delaying heart disease, stroke, dementia, falls, respiratory disease and even cancer. 

It's a great venue for it too, with plenty of parking nearby.

Unless you have been living under a rock recently, you cannot but have noticed that there is a lot of political debate about whether cannabis should be legalised, decriminalised or made available on prescription. 

As ever there is a vast amount of misinformation in the media and online so we thought to try to provide some perspective.  Be warned - you may be surprised and may not like what we have to say here but it is as far as can be told, the truth.

Updated 19/07/19

Whilst we don’t generally recommend alternative treatments, we get asked about complementary therapies a lot so we thought we would ask Simone Reddington from the Apothecary at the Tannery in Woolston to put together a checklist for you.

On Sunday 1st July 2017, Anuj Shah married Jyotika Muneshwari Mani in a traditional ceremony held in her home town of Wanganui.  Despite him hailing from New York, a large contingent of his family made the trip to New Zealand and of course, so did a bunch of us from SHC.  Read on for more pictures.

Hackers have locked up the data in thousands of computers including in General Practice and hospitals across the UK and round the world.

Could your data be at risk?