The current reorganisation of the English NHS into "Sustainability and Transformation" areas was one of the topics at the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting held at short notice at Reading's Civic Offices on 14th June. The Western half of Berkshire is joined with Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire in a new health planning area known variously as COBWeb, WeBOB or BOB, under the leadership of David Smith, CEO of Oxfordshire CCG. Although Oxford University hospitals will be at the heart of this region, Andy Ciecierski, chair of Western Berkshire's Urgent and Emergency Care Board, was able to reassure public and members present that there was little chance of removal or disruption of the well-performing Cardiac and Stroke emergency services at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Cathy Winfield, Accountable Officer for Western Berkshire CCGs, said that plan for the new area, due to be submitted to NHS England by 30th June, would now only need to select 3-5 priorities for the region over the period to march 2021. There were already developments taking place at the scale of the COBWeB region, such as the recommissioning of the 111 service, which had started before these new regional developments. The Accountable Care System, which was being established for Western Berkshire rather than the larger COBWeB region, would form part of healthcare in the whole COBWeB region. The larger region would work together on IT integration, on the problems of the medical workforce in high cost areas and common support for preventative healthcare. The meeting also discussed the proposed move for most people with learning disability in inpatient accommodation to the community, with discussion of the community support arrangements, but also some uncertainty still as to the funding of community accommodation. The 2016/17 plan for the integration of healthcare and social care, intended to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and to better support discharge and rehabilitation, was approved by the meeting.

Berkshire Health Network is holding a couple of consultations on patient experience and opinion regarding Opthalmology (Eye Health) and End Of Life / Palliative Care. Please respond to these comsultations if you can. Start by clicking on one of the links below:

• Consultation on Opthalmology (Eye Health). This survey is open until 22 May 2016.
• Consultation on End Of Life / Palliative Care . This survey is open until 26 May 2016.

Opthalmology and End Of Life / Palliative Care services are being redesigned in Western Berkshire and the results of these consultations will feed into the redesign and new commissioning.

NHS England has proposed a five year boost to spending on General Practice rising to 2.4 billion per year in 2020/21. The full account of the five year programme spells out changes in workforce, simplifications of inspection and the hospital interface, provision for 100% reimbursement of premises development cost, support for stressed or burned out GPs, extra opening hours and more.

The state of Reading's health and wellbeing will be presented by Kim Wilkins of Reading Borough Council's Public Health team along with a look at how the state of our health is assessed and how it is used by our CCG in planning developments in health care. Click here to get started with JSNA = Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for Reading. We will also be receiving news from Patient Participation Groups, from Healthwatch and from our CCG as well as national NHS news of interest to us. CCG area.

Stewart Rowbotham, Director of Wellbeing for Wokingham will be talking about "Redesigning Care for the Frail Elderly" at our meeting at 6pm on Wednesday, 24th February 2016, at 94 London Street, RG1 4SJ. Other matters discussed will be news from the CCG and from Patient Participation Groups at GP practices in the South Reading CCG area.

Social Prescribing will be our main topic when Sarah Morland, of Reading Voluntary Action, tells us about this new development which is being piloted at several South Reading CCG area GP practices. The meeting will start at 6pm on 27th January 2016 at 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. In addition to the talk on Social Prescribing we will be discussing news from Patient Participation Groups, from our CCG and from Reading Healthwatch. South Reading Patient Voice is open to anyone using a GP practice belonging to South Reading CCG while others my attend as guests by arrangement.

The GP chair of South Reading CCG, Dr Ishak Nadeem, will be our speaker at the next South Reading Patient Voice meeting at 6pm on Wednesday, 25th November at 94, London Street, Reading RG1 4SJ. Please prepare and send in your questions about health and healthcare in South Reading. We will also be hearing your news from local Patient Participation Groups and GP practices and hope to hear more about planned changes in local healthcare. There will also be elections for Chair, Vice-chair and Information Officer - our 3 offices - and a chance to give views on how our group is doing.

Under NHS England's new five-year plan our sustainability and transformation programme is to be organised by COBWeB (Commissioning for Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Western Berkshire). This organisation will be headed by David Smith, continuing and current chief executive of Oxfordshire CCG. What level of public and patient participation, local authority engagement and collaboration there will be over this unwieldy and unnatural area remains to be seen. There is a long history of mismanagement of Reading's facilities by county-level authorities, and Oxford-based management of the AAA screening programme in Reading has been far from inspiring. Let us hope that David Smith will show that this is not inevitable.

The CQC has given a "good" rating to Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust the provider of mental health services, community nursing services, out of hours GP services and of some primary care GP services across Berkshire. The trust received individual "good" ratings or all of its service groups except for "wards for people with learning difficulties or autism" which received the rating "requires improvement". The individual GP services provided had been rated separately earlier - Circuit Lane surgery received "required improvement", Priory Avenue surgery received "good". Click here for detailed reports on aspects of the Trust's service.

End of Life care is improving but there is still room for improvement. That's the message from an audit of end of life care in hospitals funded by the Marie Curie Foundation and NHS England. This is the first audit since the withdrawal of the "Liverpool Care Pathway" in 2014 which, it had been found, was not been appropriately and compassionately applied in some cases, Marie Curie Foundation comments: "Overall, the results show that there have been documented improvements in: 

1. Recognition that patients are dying and that they have received holistic assessments of their care
2. The amount and quality of communication with patients who are able to communicate, and with those identified as important to them
3. Symptom control for the dying person
4. Commitment to education, training, reporting and continuous improvement in caring for dying people

However, there is room for improvement, particularly in the provision of palliative care services 24-7; the audit also shows how some hospitals did well in many areas but not in others. " You can also read comments from the Royal College of Physicians. The full report is attached.