Hi

As a follow up I have used a combination of both suggestions.

I have to say that watching PIR1.5 (RCIF suggested by cncmachineguy)for a change is my preferred method of checking for a character received in the USART buffer. This seems to cause me less problems with my CCPx capture i.e. less time delay. Unfortunately the down side is that it is read only and I have not found a way (yet!) to reset/clear the USART buffer by using the registers. So I have utilised the HSERIN, with a small timeout, command as aratti suggested. Using this then clears the USART buffer and appears to work fine.

Code:
if PIR1.5 = 1 then 
Hserin 1,jump,[MI]           ' 1mS timeout then read the character and clear buffer
jump:                        ' Character is any because it is only used as an interupt
gosub gratio
endif
Thanks again much appreciated......