Our next meeting will be at 6pm on Wednesday, 30th November 2016, when we will discuss the impact of the Five Year Transformation Plan on Reading. The meeting will be at 94, London Street, Reading RG1 4SJ. We will also discuss latest news from Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) at member surgeries and news from our CCG, Healthwatch and other local organisations involved in health and wellbeing.

Our next meeting will be at 6pm on Wednesday, 30th November 2016, when we will discuss the impact of the Five Year Transformation Plan on Reading. The meeting will be at 94, London Street, Reading RG1 4SJ. We will also discuss latest news from Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) at member surgeries and news from our CCG, Healthwatch and other local organisations involved in health and wellbeing.

"Integrating Health and Social Care in Reading" will be the topic when Kevin Johnson, Reading's Integration Manager for Care Services, addresses South Reading Patient Voice on Wednesday, 26th October at 6pm at 94, London Street, Reading RG1 4SJ. The group will also hear news from Patient Participation Groups, the CCG, Healthwatch and discuss local NHS services.

The information that patients need to understand how well their GP surgery is performing is the subject of the talk and discussion led by Francis Brown of the Priory Avenue PPG on 28th September at 6pm to 7.45pm at Reading Community Learning Centre, 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. We will also hear news from the CCG and patient participation groups, Healthwatch and discuss our future activities. The meeting is open to everyone registered with a GP practice in the South Reading CCG clinical area.

We will be discussing patient engagement in the NHS with the new lay member of the South Reading CCG Governing Body, Wendy Bower and Nikki Malin, in charge of comms support for Berkshire West CCGs. The meeting is from 6.00pm to 7.45 pm on Wednesday, 20th July 2016, at the Reading Community Learning Centre, 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. There will also be news from PPGs and from the CCG.

There will be a discussion about developments in primary care. The set of questions posed as starters is: 

1. Where are we with the new workforce in GP surgeries?
2. What will the new alliances of practices be doing differently?
3. There are practices with closed lists in South Reading CCG area - will we have sufficient primary care capacity?
4. Cancer wait targets are being missed at RBH. What are the effects of this? Can this be put right?
5. What can be done about rising A&E attendances AND admissions?
6. Can we do more for carers at GP surgeries?
7. NHS England is proposing better incident reporting at GP surgeries. How will that work?
8. How well are we doing as regards outcomes? (See attached document taken from the NHS Choices web site.)

There will also be reports from Patient Participation Groups and from recent healthcare planning and consultation meetings held in public. Patients registered with a GP practice in the South Reading CCG area are welcome to attend.

The Macmillan Cancer Information bus - Bertie - will be in Reading this week. On Tuesday 14th November from 10am to 4pm it will be at Tesco (Oxford Road/Portman Road) at the Portman Road side. On Thursday 16th November from 10am to 4pm it will be in Broad Street, Reading. No appointment necessary - come along with your questions and talk to friendly specialists.

The Primary Care Commissioning Committee for Berkshire West meets in public at 1pm on Wednesday, 13th September at the Berkshire Maestros building, Prospect School, Cockney Hill, Reading. If attending please register online. For details on asking questions at the meeting please see here.

With the budget approaching we have a plethora of reports of the acute need for additional funding if the NHS is to continue as we know it. The target for 92% of patients referred for treatment should receive it within 18 weeks has been assigned low priority since March 2017. It had not been achieved for over a year and controlling hospital deficits has higher priority in the current constrained position. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) have issued a report on the state of care in the NHS.. It concludes that the majority of care is good but that the system and workforce are at full stretch with numbers of patients and complexity of cases still increasing and future quality is precarious. There has been much improvement, it states, but some services have deteriorated in quality. As reported by Sky News In a speech in Birmingham, Simon Stevens, the leader of NHS England, warmed that the planned budget for 2018-19 falls well short of what is needed to look after patients and their families at their time of greatest need. Some elective treatments may have to be retrenched or rationed. Workforce shortages are widely acknowledged and aggravated by the uncertainty and unease created by the Brexit vote. The Royal College of Nursing has called for a "cash injection" to the NHS. It calls for 4billion increase for the NHS and 2.6billion of social care to prevent increasing patient waits, deteriorating quality and rationing of treatment. The report is based on analyses by the Health Foundation, the King's Fund and the Nuffield Trust. We can note that the 1% public sector pay policy whose end has just been announced corresponds to a loss in real income of about 14%. The Health Foundation has issued a report on the NHS workforce. This shows numbers of nurses and GPs still falling and a big fall in the number of mature people starting nursing courses after the abolition of student bursaries for nursing courses outweighing an increase in 18-19 year-olds joining these courses. NHS Providers has issued a call for budget funding increases to help the NHS recover to achieve its target standards. It points out that despite best efforts from front-line staff all four key NHS performance targets for A&E, planned operations, ambulance response times and cancer were missed last year for the first time ever. The elective surgery list is now nearing a length last seen in 2007; and trusts are warning they will struggle to recover the 95 per A & E four hour target. In calling for a realistic, prioritised plan for the rest of the parliament, it emphasises that NHS trusts want to meet the constitutional standards placed on the NHS. It also points out that they have improved productivity and made significant savings in recent years, and continue to do so. The King's Fund has been issued quarterly reports on the state of the NHS for six years. In its latest quarterly report they conclude, "Performance against a number of key indicators is worse than at this time last year, and finances remain precarious despite an emergency funding injection." High levels of flu in the Southern hemisphere give rise to fears that there could be many cases here.

The Governing Body of South Reading CCG meets in public at 9.30-12,30 on Wednesday 6th December 2017 at the Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road, RG1 5EX. To book your attendance or to find out about asking questions at the end of the meeting please see here. or phone 0118 982 2706.