Reading again has an Urgent Care Centre, open from 8am to 8pm every day at the doctor's practice on the first floor of Broad Street Mall. The Urgent Care Centre will see people with urgent conditions. It asserts that it does not treat injuries - perhaps because it has no X-ray facilties. Anyone with and injury or a life-threatening condition should attend the Royal Berkshire Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department. The centre is commissioned to offer 100 appointments per day over an eighteen month pilot period.

Reading Health and Wellbeing Board meets at 2pm on Friday 20th January 2023. You can attend the meeting online or in person. Please contact Nicky.Simpson@reading.gov.uk for remote attendance details or to submit questions. Public questions should be submitted a couple of weeks before to allow for answers to be prepared. Papers for the meeting will be available about 1 week beforehand.

The BOB integrated care system is run by its NHS Integrated Care Board but its strategy is set by a wider partnership - the BOB Integrated Care Partnership, bringing together the NHS, local authorities, voluntary and charitable organisations and others. The Integrated Care Partnership Board is now consulting on its strategic priorities for the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West health and social care system. There will be public meetings in January 2023 (to be specified) as part of the consultation. The consultation ends on 29th January.

South Reading Patient Voice will hold its first regular meeting of 2023 at 6pm on Wednesday, 8th February. This should be online via Microsoft Teams and in person in Committee Room 1 at the Civic Offices, Bridge Street, Reading RG1 2LU. We will discuss local news and patient experience and also our work plans for 2023.

All GPs now have direct access to cancer diagnostic scans, saving an intermediate referral to a hospital consultant. NHS England says, "Under the scheme, around 67,000 people who are usually diagnosed with cancer through non-urgent testing will now be eligible for fast-tracking and have a better chance of their disease being picked up at an earlier stage."