South Reading Patient Voice meetings on Wednesday 27th March at 6pm at the the University Health Centre. There will be an update on the CCG as it comes into full being on 1st April, a discussion on the next year's activities and elections for chair and other officers.

We will be meeting between 6pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday, 27th March 2013. There will be an update on the CCG as it is about to come into being, a discussion on the activities of the South Reading Patient Voice over the coming year and an election for char and officers.

A trial project to help primary school kids get active, control their weight and eat a healthy diet is being rolled out in Reading. The project "Let's Get Going" is for 7 to 12 year old children. It has run at Geoffrey Field school, at Whiltley Junior School and currently at Katesgrove Primary School. The project is run by NHS Berkshire Public Health with Berkshire Youth. It runs as an after-school club with 45 minutes of physical activity and 45 minutes of theory. Parents join in for the last 30 minutes of each session.
 
The course works towards the following goals:
 

• Relatively equal gender split
• 40 to 50% improving their weight and waist circumference
• 50 to 60% improving their BMI
• 50 to 60% improvement on cardiovascular fitness (step test)
• 50 to 60% improvement in activity (active play/ sports/ reduction in sedentary behaviours)
• 30 to 40% improvement in nutritional status (fruit and vegetables/ increase in wholemeal/ reduction in fizzy drinks, sweets and chocolate)

How will this programme be taken forward after the re-organisation of the Health Service. The public health function will go to Reading Borough Council under the Health and Well-Being Board. There is evidently a big opportunity to roll out this programme to many more primary schools. Let's hope that the ball isn't dropped during the re-organisation!

The Government is to withdraw and redraft proposed regulations which appeared to require Clinical Commissioning Groups to put ALL service contracts out to tender. A storm of opposition from patients and medical profession in Parliament and outside has caused the Government to withdraw these regulations, which might otherwise have passed Parliamentary approval on the nod. They would have caused major expense, delay and loss of control by commissioning groups as every service contract would have had to have been openly advertised and tendered. Opponents cited assurances made by Ministers during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act through Parliament, which appeared to give commissioning clinicians the choice of when to put services out to tender, according to the best interests of patients.

Royal Berkshire Hospital Consultant Carl Waldman has brought in a new technique to avoid the danger of a blood clot reaching the lungs in a patient recovering from an operation. 80 year old Doreen Carter of Wokinham, had a temporary "tiTanuim wire filter" inserted near her heart after a major operation as a less risky alternative to the administration of anti-clot drugs. Six UK hospitals will be trialling the new technique. To read the full BBC report click here .

South Reading CCG, with the support of South Reading Patient Voice, will be holding a conference on best practice and local plans for Dementia and Elderly care on 14th May 2013 at the Shenai Rooms, London Street, Reading. The aim of the conference is to inform patients, professionals and the voluntary sector about the range of services available to people living with dementia and their carers across health and social care. It will also aim to identify where there are gaps in services and discuss how to close them. There will be presentations on best practice from other areas and opportunity to share ideas and discuss what proposals are in the pipeline. There will also be the opportunity for stakeholders to showcase their services. The conference is open to anyone who can contribute to, or learn from, the days events. Agenda and booking forms will be circulated in March. If you would like more details contact: Carol Munt - SRPV chair or telephone Berkshire NHS on 01189 822 709

A Sivlerstar charity modible diabetes testing van is visiting the Alexandra Road Mosque on Friday, 1st March. The visit, in association with South Readng NHS GPs and NHS Berkshire public health authorities, offers a speedy diabetes check and body type analysis. The Silverstar charity concentrates on diabetes awareness and testing in people of South Asian origin in Britain, who have a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes. It also operates in South Asia. Hopefully there will be more visits in the future to extend awareness and testing of this serious condition to all those of South Asian origin in our community.

Three local bids have passed Stage 1 in applications for 50 million funding for dementia environments .
 
Reading Council is bidding for funding to create a dementia friendly garden at the "The Willows"
 
Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust is bidding for funding to Improve the caring environment and provide cohesion between wards
 
Royal Berks Hospital Foundation Trust is bidding for funding to make wards dementia-friendly.

On 13th February the Department for Health laid before Parliament new statutory regulations governing procurement and competition. They will govern procurement by Clinical Commissioning Groups like the South Reading CCG after 1st April. The regulations and the official explanatory memo are attached.This followed a consultation last year. While they give welcome rights to patients, there are areas for concern, especially in that they require "best value" although the Health and Social Care Act 2012 ruled out competition on the basis of price. 

Statutory regulations are not normally debated by Parliament byt the organisation 38 degrees is petitioning for a full debate in this case
38 degrees petition
The attached response to consultation from the Patients Association raises some concerns.
  
The Health Service Journal commented, "Lawyers working in the NHS told HSJ the regulations could have wide-reaching implications on the mix of providers of NHS-funded services. The rules ban any restrictions on competition that are not necessary. They say contracts can only be awarded without tender for technical reasons, or reasons connected with the protection of exclusive rights or for reasons of extreme urgency.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chief negotiator of the British Medical Association's General Practitioner Committee is quoted in Pulse magazine as saying, "These regulations are placing a compulsion on CCGs to use competition by default, with exceptions to this occurring in defined instances. I think that reneges on the commitment given by Government to CCGs at the passing of the bill.

An ideological requirement for competition will be bureaucratic and will force CCGs to commission with the private sector. The last thing CCGs need is to be spending all of their time putting out every service to tender. There is a huge bureaucracy and expense involved in processing tenders.

it will affect GPs because the last thing we want is for CCGs to be incurring expense, delay of going through tendering processes, but also we dont want GPs as providers to be putting unnecessary time and expense into tendering for services either."

The minutes of the CCG Authorisation Sub-Committee from December show that the NCB before authorising the Berkshire West CCGs, did have concerns over the structure of the Berkshire West Federation. In particular how one Accountable Officer would be responsible for four CCGs, as shown by the following extract from the minutes: (SPD is Dr Sarah Pinto-Duchinsky - head of CCG authorisation and BH is Dame Barabara Hakin National DIrector of Commissioning Development) 

 

• 27 SPD moved to present the Berkshire West Federation of four CCGs, which includes Newbury and District CCG, North and West Reading CCG, South Reading CCG, and Wokingham CCG. The federation intended to have one Accountable Officer and one Chief Finance Officer shared across the four CCGs.
• 28. BH outlined that the moderation and conditions panel had agreed to bring the most significant issues for resolution to the sub-committee and highlighted that the Berkshire West federation was considered to be the most difficult issue to be resolved in wave one. The main issue with Berkshire West federation was how one AO would be able to service four separate governing bodies at the same time as running the four CCGs on a day-to-day basis.
• 29. SPD explained that their view had been that the individual CCGs had been so focussed on the creation of their four individual sets of arrangements that they had not concentrated on how they would work as a collective. The assessments had been careful not to pass judgement on the designate AO as an individual but rather expressed concerns that the current arrangements would not be adequate to support all four CCGs.
• 30. The sub-committee discussed the issue and concluded that the federation should be asked to review its governance functions in order to ensure that the AO and other directors would be able to function effectively.
• 31. The sub-committee approved the recommendation to appoint the AO with these assurances.
• 32. SPD confirmed that the recommendation to the sub-committee was to authorise each of the four CCGs with conditions.
• 33. The sub-committee approved the authorisation each of the four CCGs within the Berkshire West federated CCGs conditions.