Reading Patient Voice Group will meet online and in Committee Room 1 of the Reading Civic Offices on Bridge Street (entrance still at rear) at 6pm on Wednesday 24th Sept (the 4th Wednesday). We will discuss local healthcare and particularly patient experience at local GP practices, in particular, the results of the annual GP Patient survey. To join online please click here.

The AGM of Berkshire Healthcare Trust (community and mental health care) will be held online (via Teams) at 2pm - 3.15pm on Wednesday 24th Sept. The link for the meeting is on this page. There will be an opportunity for anyone who joins us to ask questions through our live Q&A function. You can also send any questions you may have before the event by emailing us: members@berkshire.nhs.uk

You can see the recorded meeting here .

The AGM of the Oxford University Hospitals Trust will be held in Tingewick Hall, at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Oxford OX3 9DU, on Thursday 18th Sept. Stalls and refreshments from 5.30pm; meeting starts at 6pm. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any provision for remote attendance (we have complained).

The recording of this meeting is here .

The Royal Berkshire Hospital Trust AGM will be held online (via Teams) and in the Trust Educational Centre on Craven Road at 5.30pm on Wednesday 17th September. Questions can also be submitted in advance of the meeting by emailing foundation.trust@royalberkshire.nhs.uk by Wednesday 10 September 2025 or at the meeting itself. To joint the meeting online please register at this page. The doors will open from 4pm where you can find a number of showcasing stands and departments from within the Trust. This includes our Diabetes & Endocrinology team showcasing their innovative work being carried out using the Hybrid Closed Loop System Pump. Other teams also attending are Digital, Data & Technology, Menopause, Royal Berks Charity, Virtual Hospital Service, Meet PEET (Patient Experience & Engagement Team). There will also be an opportunity to meet your local Governors. The main event will commence at 5.30pm.

The Royal Berkshire Hospital has a new patient portal for handling appointments and more. It is found at patients.royalberkshire.nhs.uk - which you may need to remember. You can register your email and password or use the credentials you use for the NHS App to log in. The new portal replaces the DrDoctor portal. It can be used to inspect or manage appointments and to receive notifications and booking updates from the hospital (prompted by text message we assume).

The BOB Integrated Care Board meets on Tuesday 9th September at 1.30pm in public online. The link will be found on this page.

The NHS is starting a campaign urging older adult to have a vaccination against the RSV virus, which can cause serious consequences for older people.

Please note that this vaccination doesn't have to be repeated every year like the flu vaccine - you just get it once.

Every year the polling company Ipsos-Mori carries out a detailed survey of what patients think about the GP practice on behalf of the NHS. A good sample of responses is sought from each GP practice. This year's results have recently been published.

It can be difficult to interpret the results; what does it mean if 93% of patients think that their experience is good or very good? What about the 7% who don't? Is that too much?

For this reason we compare the answers of all surgeries in England (after eliminating those that have too few responses) and rank the surgeries according to the answers. Then we express this rank as a percentage (so-called "percentile rank"). If you score 100% that means you are right at the top. If you score 50% that means that your results are right in the middle of all surgeries. If your score is 1% that means you are below almost all other surgeries. That makes it easier to see strengths and weaknesses.

We have applied this method to 6 key questions asked in the survey (there are about 50 in all). Please see the first spreadsheet file attached below for this year's results for Reading GP practices this year and the second spreadsheet file for the results for Reading GP practices for all years from 2018 to 2025.

To read more about our approach to interpreting these results please view this web page.

The results for 2025 for just 3 most significant questions for Reading practices are in the table below.

Reading Patient Voice Group meets at 6pm on Wednesday 16th July to hear Prof Carol Wagstaff of Reading University talking about work on health inequalities with Berkshire Healthcare. We will also discuss our preliminary contacts with the Patient Voice groups of West Berkshire and Wokingham, first thoughts on the NHS 10-year plan and local healthcare matters.

Please find below the agenda for the meeting.

Corrected 10 July 205 to reflect uncertainty as to how local Healthwatch will be carried forward.

According to BBC reports the Government is to abolish over 200 supervisory organisations in the health service, including Healthwatch England, the Office of the National Guardian, which is supposed to support whistleblowers and offer training related to whistle blowing and the Health Services Safety Investigations Board.

It is unclear how local Healthwatch bodies, such as Healthwatch Reading, will go forward.

Healthwatch Reading represents patients on the Reading Health and Wellbeing Board and in many discussions on the commissioning of health services with the BOB Integrated Care Board. Will this continue as before?

Our view is that the NHS should adopt a no-fault approach to medical errors and encourage whistle-blowing rather than abolishing the body supposedly supporting whistle blowers.