THE League of Friends of Savernake Hospital has undergone a name change.

It was agreed at the annual meeting to change the name of the group to The Friends of Savernake Hospital and Community.

The change has been introduced to reflect the way in which the work of the organisation is increasingly extending into the community.

The group was originally known as the League of Friends of the Marlborough Hospitals when Marlborough had two hospitals, Savernake and the former Children's Convalescent Hospital on The Common.

Guest speaker, Dr Simon Manchip, consultant in old age psychiatry at the Farmer Memorial Unit at Savernake Hospital, talked of his team's pioneering work in helping people with problems of memory loss, emphasising that this was not necessarily a symptom of Alzheimer's disease.

He said that a 45 minute test could now identify the cause of the memory loss and stressed that early diagnosis improved the chances of slowing the progress of Alzheimer's.