South Reading Patient Voice will meet on Wednesday, 29th July at 6:15pm at the Reading Community Learning Centre, 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. We will discuss local health matters and will look at the recently published Berkshire West Primary Care Strategy

The Berkshire West CCGs are re-commissioning the 111 service. The consultation is now closed.

Reading, Burghfield, Mortimer, Pangbourne and Theale played Beat the Street for 8 weeks from 29 April 24 June. 23,9992 residents in 84 teams travelled 306,740 miles. This released 4000 to Royal Berks Charity. Congratulations to The Hill Primary and Yoga Reading who topped the two tables. Read the full report here, The NHS 5-year plan depends essentially on better participation in preventive health from everyone - so let's keep on walking and cycling to stay in better health.

Immediate cuts of 7% to Public Health budgets were announced early in June. Many people do not realise that the current five-year NHS forward plan - which proposes 24 billion of efficiency savings over 5 years - depends on progress in preventive health. Preventive health is a major responsibility of NHS Public Health authorities - which are now integrated with local authorities. This makes the acheivement of the 5-year plan even more challenging. A report on this change from Pulse Today is available here.

NHS England has published an account of the work Pharmacists may do in GP surgeries. A 15 million programme to fund more pharmacists in GP surgeries has just been announced by NHS England as part of their New Deal for GPs. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has published information on the work of pharmacists in GP practices including this set of case studies

"Diabetes Care" in South Reading will be the topic when Dr Richard Croft, diabetes lead for Berkshire West federation, addresses the group on Wednesday, 24th June at 6:15pm at the Reading community Learning Centre, 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ.

Since the start of April 2015, the South Reading CCG, in common with other CCGs in the Berkshire West federation, has been jointly responsible for Primary Care with NHS England. This makes possible the design and implementation of an integrated health and social care system incorporating primary care. But of course, it also creates serious conflicts of interest, whose resolution is not evident to the public. The four CCGs in Berkshire West meet in a common Primary Care Co-Commissioning Committee to plan the evolution of primary care. After meeting for many months, the Primary Care Co-Commissioning Committee has made its strategy and plan available to the public (see below). The Committee will be meeting in public at the Oakwood Centre, Headley Road, Woodley RG5 4JZ at 13:00 - 15:00 on Wednesday, 24th June 2015.

Plans for the redeveloped Townlands Hospital, the community hospital for Henley-on-Thames, promised 18 beds, but the public is now being told by Oxford Health, the Oxfordshire service provider, that only 5 beds will be provided. The Henley Standard is leading a campaign to restore the plans for 18 beds. At a recent public meeting 300 people turned up at a hall holding only 200 and many people were turned away. Townlands hospital is managed by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust but services (except minor injuries unit) are provided by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust. On 11th July 2,500 people marched in protest against the changed plans. The unavailability of beds at Townlands hospital could mean delayed discharges at Royal Berks Hospital.

A website devoted to the health and health problems of young children available in English, Urdu, Punjabi, Polish has been created by the four NHS clinical commissioning groups in the western part of Berkshire.

In a speech to the NHS Federation (the organisation of NHS service providers), the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, set the direction of the NHS for the new Government. His first point was the the path to patient safety is the same as that to economy. At the same time NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence was asked to stop its work on safe staffing levels in hospital wards, to the disapproval of Robert Francis, chair of the enquiry into the Mid-Staffs hospital failure, The Health Secretary also indicated that central government would estimate the savings ro be made by better procurement at each NHS provider and insist on those savings from January 2016. He also introduced the idea of chains of NHS Trusts, multi-site organisations that could share resources and best practice within a single organisational uimbrella. Locally we have seen an example of this in Frimley Park Trust taking over Wexham Park Hospital Trust. The new deal for primary care was also mentioned - but without giving further detail. A change in targets and reporting was announced. The A&E target of 95% of patients to be seen within 4 hours (formerly 98%) will now only be reported monthly, alongside other hospital targets. He also suggested two out of three parts of the 18-week referral-to-treatment times (RTTs) be abolished. They are the target for 90% of patients who need treatment to be given it within 18 weeks, and the target for 95% of people needing outpatient appointments to be seen within 18 weeks. The target for 92% of all patients to be seen within 18 weeks will not be scrapped. He said a pilot testing the effectiveness of an eight-minute deadline for ambulances to respond to emergency calls should be extended. A new look at measuring the performance of CCGs through health outcomes in their areas was signalled, starting with a study by the King's Fund think tank into a set of measures proposed.