Social Prescribing will be our main topic when Sarah Morland, of Reading Voluntary Action, tells us about this new development which is being piloted at several South Reading CCG area GP practices. The meeting will start at 6pm on 27th January 2016 at 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. In addition to the talk on Social Prescribing we will be discussing news from Patient Participation Groups, from our CCG and from Reading Healthwatch. South Reading Patient Voice is open to anyone using a GP practice belonging to South Reading CCG while others my attend as guests by arrangement.

The GP chair of South Reading CCG, Dr Ishak Nadeem, will be our speaker at the next South Reading Patient Voice meeting at 6pm on Wednesday, 25th November at 94, London Street, Reading RG1 4SJ. Please prepare and send in your questions about health and healthcare in South Reading. We will also be hearing your news from local Patient Participation Groups and GP practices and hope to hear more about planned changes in local healthcare. There will also be elections for Chair, Vice-chair and Information Officer - our 3 offices - and a chance to give views on how our group is doing.

Under NHS England's new five-year plan our sustainability and transformation programme is to be organised by COBWeB (Commissioning for Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Western Berkshire). This organisation will be headed by David Smith, continuing and current chief executive of Oxfordshire CCG. What level of public and patient participation, local authority engagement and collaboration there will be over this unwieldy and unnatural area remains to be seen.

The CQC has given a "good" rating to Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust the provider of mental health services, community nursing services, out of hours GP services and of some primary care GP services across Berkshire. The trust received individual "good" ratings or all of its service groups except for "wards for people with learning difficulties or autism" which received the rating "requires improvement". The individual GP services provided had been rated separately earlier - Circuit Lane surgery received "required improvement", Priory Avenue surgery received "good".

End of Life care is improving but there is still room for improvement. That's the message from an audit of end of life care in hospitals funded by the Marie Curie Foundation and NHS England.