You may have heard that the NHS Direct telephone service is to be replaced by the new 111 service. The 111 service will give advice on health problems and where to seek treatment and will give access to out-of-hours service or ambulance service where necessary. It will run alongside the 999 emergency service which will still give the emergency ambulance service as before. 

South Reading Patient Voice meetings on Wednesday 27th March at 6pm at the the University Health Centre. There will be an update on the CCG as it comes into full being on 1st April, a discussion on the next year's activities and elections for chair and other officers.

We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 27th March 2013. There will be an update on the CCG as it is about to come into being, a discussion on the activities of the South Reading Patient Voice over the coming year and an election for char and officers.

A trial project to help primary school kids get active, control their weight and eat a healthy diet is being rolled out in Reading. The project "Let's Get Going" is for 7 to 12 year old children. It has run at Geoffrey Field school, at Whiltley Junior School and currently at Katesgrove Primary School. The project is run by NHS Berkshire Public Health with Berkshire Youth. It runs as an after-school club with 45 minutes of physical activity and 45 minutes of theory. Parents join in for the last 30 minutes of each session.
 
The course works towards the following goals:

The Government is to withdraw and redraft proposed regulations which appeared to require Clinical Commissioning Groups to put ALL service contracts out to tender. A storm of opposition from patients and medical profession in Parliament and outside has caused the Government to withdraw these regulations, which might otherwise have passed Parliamentary approval on the nod. They would have caused major expense, delay and loss of control by commissioning groups as every service contract would have had to have been openly advertised and tendered.