South Reading Patient Voice meets again on Wednesday, 25th May at 6pm at Reading Community Learning Centre, 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. Three short talks by members of the group will provide insights into widely different areas of the health economy. Douglas Findlay will talk about the new Sustainability and Transformation Plan areas, Shaheen Kausar will talk about Health, Language and the work of the Reading Community Learning Centre, and Philip Lowry will talk about his experiences in early work with human growth hormone, and how it looked in retrospect.

 South Reading Patient Voice has written to the leader of the new COBWeB area (Commissioning for Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Western Berkshire) asking for patients and public to be involved in the five year planning which is due to be presented in June 2016 and finalised in July 2016.

The current reorganisation of the English NHS into "Sustainability and Transformation" areas was one of the topics at the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting held at short notice at Reading's Civic Offices on 14th June. The Western half of Berkshire is joined with Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire in a new health planning area known variously as COBWeb, WeBOB or BOB, under the leadership of David Smith, CEO of Oxfordshire CCG.

Berkshire Health Network is holding a couple of consultations on patient experience and opinion regarding Opthalmology (Eye Health) and End Of Life / Palliative Care. Please respond to these comsultations if you can. Start by clicking on one of the links below:

NHS England has proposed a five year boost to spending on General Practice rising to 2.4 billion per year in 2020/21. The full account of the five year programme spells out changes in workforce, simplifications of inspection and the hospital interface, provision for 100% reimbursement of premises development cost, support for stressed or burned out GPs, extra opening hours and more.