The next meeting of the Reading Borough Health and Well-Being Board is on Friday 25th January at 2pm in the Kennet Room of the Reading Civic Offices. These meetings are open to the public. To request papers in advance contact Nicky Simpson at Reading Borough Council using this form.

We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 30th January 2013. The Agenda will include presentation and discussions on AQP (any qualified provider - the Government's choice of supplier approach), the progress of the CCG and the commissioning plan for South Reading.

South Reading Clinical Commissioning Group has now advertised for two lay members to join its Governing Body, one position emphasising Governance and the other Public and Patient Involvement. These positions are permanent, remunerated and involve a commitment of at least two days per month. The advertisement in the Reading Chronicle of 10 January 2012 gives full details. Applications close on 24th January 2012.

The Government has announced grants for ring-fenced Public Health expenditure for 2013-14 and 2014-15. Reading gets 7.5M for 2013-14 and 8.2M for 2014-15. This equates to 47 per head for 2013-14 and 52 per head for 2014-15. The England average is 49 per head in 2013-14 and 51 per head in 2014-15.

You can follow the South Reading Clinical Commissioning Group on Twitter at @SReadingCCG.

The National Commissioning Board for the NHS has granted conditional authorisation to South Reading Clinical Commissioning Group. There are four conditions attached which are organisational in nature and should be satisfied in the next few months so that the South Reading CCG should be in good shape to take on the planning and purchasing of secondary services for the people of South Reading from April 2013. The other CCGs in the Berkshire West have also gained conditional approval, but South Reading has the least number of conditions attached. 
 
We offer our congratulations to the CCG Board and all GPs in the South Reading CCG on this achievement and look forward to working with them for the health and wellbeing of the people of South Reading.
 

What is an Integrated Care System?

Berkshire West is one of the pioneer Integrated Care Systems. Here NHS explains what that is supposed to be. 

2017 View of the NHS by The Kings Fund

< The King's Fund - How Does the NHS in England Work (2017)" ?

National Health Service - the component parts and how they fit together for South Reading

Most residents are registered with a General Practitioner, also known as a family doctor or GP and separately with a dentist. The GP practice provides primary care and arranges referrals to secondary care in hospital, clinic or in the community. You see the GP by contacting one of the practice surgeries and making an appointment to see a GP. In those cases where getting to the surgery is impossible a home visit may be arranged. The GP surgery often hosts nurse and other specialist services and arranges home visits from the community nursing services. Our of normal surgery hours GP or other treatment is arranged by telephoning 111, or, in the case of a life-threatening emergency, 999 for the ambulance service. Community nursing care is provided by specialist nurses before and after child-birth, for those suffering from debilitating long-term conditions such as heart problems or breathing problems, or at end of life. In urgent cases, the surgery may be able to arrange for someone to be seen promptly, or to receive telephone advice from a GP. The Walk-In Primary Care Centre in Broad Street Mall in central Reading is open from 8am to 8pm EVERY day. For life-threatening conditions, the accident and emergency service can be found at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Craven Road; where an ambulance is required telephone 999, the emergency telephone number, and ask for the ambulance service. The non-emergency number 111 is available at all times for medical advice and advice on how and where to seek treatment for any urgent medical problem. The National Health Service is free at the point of use to all those eligible and has been so since 1948, however there may be charges for medicines, for dental care, and for opticians tests and spectacles. Financial help with costs of transport to health treatments may be available in cases of need. Courses of treatment are laid down in many cases by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Rights of patients to receive the treatments recommended and the rights of NHS staff are laid out in the NHS constitution (formerly NHS constitution.) You and your GP may consider that you need a treatment which is not generally recommended. In this case you submit an Individual Funding Request . Policy recommendations are made by the South Central Priorities Committee. Details of the policies on these treatments and the forms to be filled in to request treatment (Independent Funding Requests) are found here. Most secondary and community treatment in the NHS is provided by NHS providers who have the form of Foundation Trusts, such as the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust which provides acute hospital and maternity services and some specialist community services, the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust which provides community and inpatient mental health services and community nursing and other therapeutic services, and the South Central NHS Ambulance Foundation Trust. Where appropriate there are options for private organisations to provide treatments. In many cases the patient has some choice of provider, which can be explained by the referring GP. From April 2017, secondary and community care in South Reading will be planned and purchased by the Berkshire West Clinical Commissioning Group (Berkshire West CCG), and it will also have joint responsibility for primary care (GP services) with NHS England. South Reading is a locality within the Berkshire West CCG area (along with North and West Reading, Newbury and District and Wokingham) Berkshire West has been made a pioneer Integrated Care System with the CCG. The CCG and existing providers are expected to work together to provide patient-centred services well integrated between primary and community care, hospital care and hopefully social care as well. Social care for those with high needs is provided by Reading Borough Council, which is increasingly working together with Berkshire West CCG to ensure safe and comfortable transitions between different care providers and more person-centred care. At present social care is not free and requires a contribution according to the recipient's means. Reading Borough Council is responsible for Public Health - assessing local health needs, acting on local outbreaks of infection, preventative care such as vaccinations, tuberculosis suppression, smoking cessation, healthy weight programmes and drug and alcohol addiction treatment.

Reading Borough Council has been consulting on a draft of its Health and Wellbeing Strategy (consultation closed 14th December 2012).. You can inspect the draft strategy and the consultation site. We have discussed the strategy and submitted our comments.

We will be meeting at the University Health Centre from 6pm to 7:30pm on Wednesday, 28th November. There will be a talk about Sexual Health Services a commissioning update and, if time permits a discussion on the review of the Reading Health and Well-Being strategy.

The South Reading Patient Voice will meet at the University Health Centre on NorthCourt Avenue at 6pm-7:30pm on Wednesday, 31st October. There will be a presentation on sexual health services and an update on commissioning.