Reading's Health and Wellbeing Board meets at 2pm on Friday 13th March 2020 in the Civic Offices at Bridge Street, Reading. Questions should be submitted about 2 weeks in advance to Nicky.Simpson@reading.gov.uk .

South Reading Patient Voice meets on Wednesday 15th Arpil at 6pm in Friends Meeting House, 2 Church Street, Reading RG1 2SB for a talk on "Population Health Management" by Katie Summers. Population Health Management is a new requirement on the Primary Care Networks, relating to health inequalities and hospital/urgent care costs. We hope to understand it better after this talk. There will also be reports and discussion of news from Healthwatch Reading, local Patient Participation Groups, Berkshire West CCG, Reading Borough Council, local NHS providers and the wider health economy.

The Berkshire West Primary Care Commissioning Committee meets at 1pm - 4pm on Wedesday 8th April 2020 at 57-59 Bath Road, Reading RG30 2BA. You can register here online to attend, registration closes at 12 noon the day before the meeting. The deadline for submitting questions, relating to the agenda for the Committee to consider, is 5pm three days before the meeting. Please email bwccg.enquiries@nhs.net:w or telephone: 0118 982 2922.

CANCELLED South Reading Patient Voice meets on Wednesday 15th Arpil at 6pm in Friends Meeting House, 2 Church Street, Reading RG1 2SB for a discussion and reports on Patient Participation Groups in our area. There will also be reports and discussion of news from Healthwatch Reading, Berkshire West CCG, Reading Borough Council, local NHS providers and the wider health economy.

At its meeting on 14th January 2020 at NHS Bath Road, Reading the Governing Body of Berkshire West CCG agreed to the proposal to appoint a single Accountable Officer for the whole BOB area (West Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire). Buckinghamshire has already approved, and Oxfordshire will consider it later in January. The proposal was the first of three contained in an engagement document which also suggested merging the 3 CCGs and strengthening the "Place"-based Integrated Care Partnerships in each of the three constituent Places. The engagement exercise elicited 224 responses, with 42% of those whose origin could be identified being from the Berkshire West area and of those 68% were opposed and 24% had concerns about the proposal to have a single Accountable Officer for the BOB area. The opposition was not so strong from Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire who already have a common Accountable Officer. Not one of those responding as a GP supported the proposal for a single Accountable Officer. The critical response drew proposals for mitigating actions from BOB, particularly creating the post of "Managing Director" at each of the 3 constituent Places. Responses cited the un-natural nature of the BOB area, the loss of local voice and accountability and democratic oversight, concern about the proposed savings, infeasibility of the Accountable Officer role, the importance of the Place-bsaed partnerships. Nevertheless, as the template of one CCG per Integrated Care System is proposed in the NHS England Long Term Plan, it is probably that some incentives will be applied to bring all three proposals to agreement, however ill-suited. Readers may wish to spot the deliberate mistake in the following quote from the job specification for the single Accountable Officer: "1.6 Politically, the local authority landscape is complex. BOB CCGs work with three County Councils (Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and West Berkshire), eight District Councils (West Oxfordshire, Cherwell, Vale of White Horse, South Oxfordshire, South Bucks, Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern and Wycombe), two Borough Councils (Reading and Wokingham) and one City Council (Oxford). The Chief Executive will be required to work collaboratively and effectively with all fourteen local authority partners". Hopefully this does not indicate the level of local awareness that will be applied to our health services in future.

NHS England is consulting on the initial service specifications for Primary Care Networks - covering the new aspects of service brought in with the networks. Please click here to access the service specification and the consultation survey. The consultation ends on 15th January 2020. The service specification describes 5 services:

1. Structured Medication Review and Medicines Optimisation
2. Enhanced Health in Care Homes
3. Anticipatory Care
4. Personalised Care
5. Supporting Early Cancer Diagnosis

The Berkshire West Primary Care Commissioning Committee meets at 1pm - 4pm on Wedesday 8th January 2020 at 57-59 Bath Road, Reading RG30 2BA. You can register online here to attend. Registration closes at 12 noon the day before the meeting. The deadline for submitting questions, relating to the agenda for the Committee to consider, is 5pm three days before the meeting. Please email bwccg.enquiries@nhs.net or telephone: 0118 982 2922.

The Governing Body of Berkshire West CCG will meet in public at 9.30-12.30 on Tuesday, 14th January 2020 at 57-59, Bath Road, Reading RG30 2BA. We understand that this meeting will discuss responses to the local consultation on the merger of the 3 CCGs for Berkshire West, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. 

South Reading Patient Voice meets at 6pm on Wednesday 15th January 2020 at Friends Meeting House, 2 Church Street, Reading RG1 2SB. There will be a led discussion on the year ahead for SRPV. There will also be reports and discussion of news from Healthwatch Reading, Berkshire West CCG, local Patient Participation Groups, Reading Borough Council, local NHS providers and the wider health economy. Because of a mixup about the booking of this meeting we will be meeting in the main meeting room instead of our usual hall.

Reading's Health and Wellbeing Board meets at 2pm on Friday 17th January 2020 in the Civic Offices at Bridge Street, Reading. Questions should be submitted about 2 weeks in advance to Nicky.Simpson@reading.gov.uk .