We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 25th June 2014 at 6pm at the Communicare office behind Wycliffe Baptist Church, Cemetery Junction (see attached Agenda for directions) . Our main item will be a talk and discussion on the Methods used by the South Reading CCG to monitor patient safety and the quality of treatment at our health providers, given by Debbie Daly, Nurse Director for the four Berkshire West CCGs.. We will also take a look at the CCG;s "plan-on-a-page" for 2014/15, and take news from the CCG and local Practice Participation Groups.

We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 25th June 2014 at 6pm at the Communicare office behind Wycliffe Baptist Church, Cemetery Junction (see attached Agenda for directions) . Our main item will be a talk and discussion on the Methods used by the South Reading CCG to monitor patient safety and the quality of treatment at our health providers, given by Debbie Daly, Nurse Director for the four Berkshire West CCGs.. We will also take a look at the CCG;s "plan-on-a-page" for 2014/15, and take news from the CCG and local Practice Participation Groups.

IN an interview on 31st May 2014 in the Daily Telegraph, Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, signalled a change of thinking on centralisation, ahead of a major speech. He said, "The NHS must stop closing cottage-style hospitals and return to treating more patients in their local communities". Mr Stevens warned that British hospitals have become among the worst in western Europe at caring for local populations, because too many services have been stripped out and centralised. He said Britain must learn from countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States, which have pioneered ways of bolstering community care around small hospitals to meet the needs of their populations. A number of other countries have found it possible to run viable local hospitals serving smaller communities than sometimes we think are sustainable in the NHS, And in an earlier speech on 1st April 2014, Simon Stevens said, "Viable local hospitals that dont all have to be huge partly because of different choices about where and how doctors are trained. Mental and physical health, unified"

Thames Valley NHS England has written to the new head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, asking for a lay/patient representative to have a place on the board of NHS England. The text of the letter to Simon Stevens is below: Dear Mr Stevens,. The Patient Partnership Leads of the Strategic Clinical Networks, along with Area team and other colleagues, offer you a very positive welcome to NHS England. We would value your assistance to resolve a concern that we, along with many patients/carers/lay people and our health professional colleagues have expressed over the last 12 months:- There is no Patient/carer/lay person voice/representative on the NHS England Board. We have worked very hard and successfully over the first year of NHS England to develop a strong and loud voice for patients and the public inall our NHS work, as clearly mandated and welcomed. This does not appear, however, to be reflected in the constituency of the NHS England Board. Effective Patient Leaders are currently actively under development - with some local variations in names/titles. In developing this important Patient Group to support all aspects of the new NHS, we believe that this would be a means of identifying individuals to work at aNational level. These details could be sent to the Participation Leads of your Executive Team which could then be the constituency of the Participation Academy currently being developed. From this hub, possibly linking to the developing Citizens Assembly, the interested adult and/or young persons of the public could be selected for the Board. Itis understood this will need proper development, and hope you will agree the value of this positive move to guarantee NHS Englands commitment to the Patient and Public voice being heard at the highest level. Rather than have a long distribution list, we will all be separately forwarding this e-mail on to the Patient Leaders we are working with. We look forward to positively pursuing this proposal with you. Best wishes Steve Steve Candler Steve Candler Senior Network & Domain Manager Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Networks NHS England Jubilee House 5510 John Smith Drive Oxford Business Park South Oxford OX4 2LH

The Governing Body of the South Reading NHS CCG will meet in public from 9.00am to 12.30am on Wednesday, 4th June 2014 at the Museum of English Rural Life in Redlands Road, Reading. Papers on strategy, patient engagement, quality and safety, finance and new services will be presented. The papers will be available at the CCG website from midday on 28th May. There is an opportunity to submit questions for the Governing Body which can relate to any aspect of NHS care funded through the CCG.

Carers week 2014 takes place in Reading from 9th to 15th June. See the attached programme of events for a range of activities covering a wide spectrum of carers' concerns, including advice on Carers Allowance, picnic by the Thames and introduction to new technology to support carers.

We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 28th May 2014 at 6pm at the Communicare office behind Wycliffe Baptist Church, Cemetery Junction (see attached Agenda for directions) . Our main item will be a talk and discussion on Reading's Health and Well-being led by Councillor Graeme Hoskin, present lead Councillor for Health and Wellbeing. There will also be an election for officers. Please see the attached Agenda for other items.

We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 28th May 2014 at 6pm at the Communicare office behind Wycliffe Baptist Church, Cemetery Junction (see attached Agenda for directions) . Our main item will be a talk and discussion on Reading's Health and Well-being led by Councillor Graeme Hoskin, present lead Councillor for Health and Wellbeing. There will also be an election for officers. Please see the attached Agenda for other items.

We are informed that the new Chief Executive of the Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will be Jean O'Callaghan. Jean's background is as Director of the South Australian Health Commission and then as chief executive of Bedford Hospital then Dorset County Hospital. We wish her all success in this important post and look forward to hearing her ideas on the development of RBH and its place in our local health services. As Jean has not yet announced her departure from Dorset County Hospital it may be a few months before she takes up her position from Acting Chief Executive Alistair Flowerdew.

Data is a valuable resource in the NHS. Careful study of the statistics of disease and mortality can lead to understanding that saves lives - like the understanding that smoking cigarettes can cause lung cancer. Data relating to hospital episodes has been collected and studied for many years. The new "Care.Data" program is intended to allow data held at GP surgeries to be studied in a similar way. Data is to be anonymised and linked to hospital and other medical data and permission is given for this on a project by project basis. The original program was to have been started this year., but elicited a wave of public protest and was postponed by six months. Concerns centred on mistrust of the anonymisation and data storage, inadequacy of the explanatory information available to the public, concern about possible misuse by private purchasers of the data. .. Now Care.Data supremo Tim Kelsey has announced that the Care.Data project will be piloted at 500 surgeries. Measures to assure the independence of scrutiny of release of anonymised linked data are before Parliament. This is an important project for the NHS so public trust must be retained and regained. The careful roll-out proposed is a good start.