BOB Integrated Care System has announced its Place directors for the component places, Berkshire West, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Sarah Webster, formerly Director of Operations at the Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, will be Interim Place director for Berkshire West. We understand that this role takes on delegated commissioning functions from BIB Integrated Care Board within Berkshire West, which will engage Sarah and her staff with the NHS trust executives, local authority representatives, Healthwatch and third sector representatives across Berkshire West.

The Mail Online reported on 22nd July 2022 that the number of full-time equivalent GPs has declined by 1,700 since 2015.

NHS England has told hospital trust chief executives to "find space" for emergency patients so that ambulance waits can be kept below 30 minutes. Another opportunity for Britain's space research effort. But will this result in few elective operations being performed? Or less caution about transmitting Covid to patients?

With the Health and Social Care Act 2022 coming into force on Friday 1st July 2022, our Clinical Commissioning Group will be dissolved and commissioning of services will be the responsibility of the BOB Integrated Care Board. This moves away from commissioning dominated by GPs to a top-down system with commissioning of services at a more strategic level - the BOB area (Buckinghamshire, Oxfotdshire and Berkshire West) has about 2.5 million people.

The Sunday Times reports on a Birmingham University study on waiting lists for surgery, showing that our BOB area is 12th in need of the 42 Integrated Care System areas, with a need for 88.6 procedures per 1,000 people. It states, 'Experts from Birmingham University have said efforts to reduce hospital backlogs are not enough and that it is impossible for the existing frontline workers to tackle increasing waiting lists.'.