The three local authorities across Berkshire West, Wokingham, Reading, West Berkshire are jointly working on a new Health and Wellbeing strategy. They are seeking your input - please take this survey and encourage others to do so.

The government has published its Obesity Strategy . The strategy includes measures to control promotion of foods high in fats, sugar and salt - controlling TV advertisements to be after 9pm, buy one get one free and display at checkout. Also revise labelling, including providing calorie totals on restaurant meals and on sales of alcohol.

Reading's ACRE (Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality), Utulivu and other organisations have organised the 2020 Health Equalities Annual Conference online (Zoom) under the title "Potentialising Community Assets in Filling the Gaps for Sustainable Health Equity (All for our wellbeing) on Friday, 31st July from 11am to 2pm. Please join via the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7674792806?pwd=N1pKRFZram9MNnhrdkRNNmFjVVAxdz09 or in the Zoom app Meeting ID: 767479 2806 Password: 2804 Please see also the attached poster

The review looked at 3 treatments which have caused harm and which only slowly and reluctantly been recognised as such. These are: hormonal pregnancy tests, the anti-convulsant drug Sodium Valproate when given in pregnancy, and the use of polypropylene mesh for pelvic repairs. In all cases serious harm and much suffering resulted and was only slowly recognised. The review looks at the experiences of patients, the reasons for the delayed recognition of the harm and makes 9 recommendations to remedy the situation.

The annual national GP patient survey - representing patients' views of their GP practices - has just been published for 2020. This is based on data taken near the start of the year. The scoring is based on patients' classification of various features of the services. Because there is no natural absolute scale for these figures we have chosen to use the practice's rank among all practices in England.