The Reading Health and Wellbeing Board meets at 2pm on Fri 17th March 2023 in the Council Chamber and online via Teams. Please click here to join the meeting.

The BOB (Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West) Integrated Care Board will meet in public, online and at Cherwell District Council Chamber, Bodicote House, White Post Road, Banbury OX15 4AA from 10.00 - 13.00 on Tuesday, 21st March 2023. The board is responsible for commissioning most NHS services within its area and for integrating them with the work of local authorities and voluntary and charitable bodies.

South Reading Patient Voice meets at 6pm on Wednesday 15th March 2023 in Room 4A, Reading Civic Offices, Bridge Street and online via Teams to hear a talk on "Implementing the Berkshire West Health and Wellbeing Strategy" by Reading's Partnerships Manager in Public Health, Dayna White and Amanda Nyeke, Reading's Manager of Wellbeing and Public Health. To join the meeting online please click here. If you intend to come in person please let us know by emailing info@srpv.org.uk as the numbers allowed in the room are limited. Berkshire West has been working on a common Health and Wellbeing strategy between the three boroughs for some time. The strategy was launched late last year (see below). Reading has planned activities to implement the strategy and chosen outcome measures to monitor its success. The implementation is reported upon at Reading's Health and Wellbeing Board meetings.

The BOB Integrated Care Partnership meets in public on Wednesday 1st March at 2pm to 4pm online and at Oxfordshire County Council offices. Please find all details here. Please find the papers for the meeting below. They include the revised strategy document for the BOB Integrated Care System, which is to be approved (or otherwise) at this meeting.

The number of district nurses has declined alarmingly over the last twenty years. District nurses require a year's additional training after nurse qualification. According to the Royal College of Nursing and the Queens Nursing Institute in 2003, there were 12,620 district nurses in England. By 2013, the number had dropped to 6,656. In 2019, it was down to just 4,000 - a reduction of two thirds in 16 years. That left only one district nurse for every 14,000 people, despite the national policy direction of providing more treatment in peoples homes. The number has since increased only marginally, to the equivalent of 4,409 full-time posts in the latest figures from March 2022. Overseas recruitment in the sector is limited as its not a service that is common in many other countries and the sector can be less visible to newly qualified graduate nurses. This is despite their importance to innovations such as Virtual Wards and Urgent Community Response Teams. The number of mental health nurses has also declined. This means that the ratio of qualified to unqualified staff on mental health wards has declined. Between 2010 and 2019 due to cuts in funding the number of mental health nurses plummeted from 7,053 to 4,031.This, despite the rhetoric of parity of esteem between mental and physical health. In 2012 the number of training places for nurses was cut across the country. In London there was a reduction from 2,000 places a year to 1,580. A spokesperson for NHS London said, "We intend to concentrate on quality not quantity." The fact that training 2,000 nurses a year was barely enough to keep pace with leavers, mainly those retiring, seemed lost on those who should have known better. The Nursing Times reported in February that applicants for nurse training have dropped alarmingly: -18% in England, -17% in Northern Ireland, -22% in Wales and -24% in Scotland. All this at a time of record numbers of vacancies and rising workload.

Healtwatch Reading is promoting a webinar on Self-Neglect to be given by Suzy Braye, Prof Emerita of Social Work at Sussex University. The webinar takes place on Wed 8th February 2023 from 10am to 11am. To register please click here . This free one-hour webinar will provide key, expert guidance for volunteers and staff working in the voluntary sector. The session will cover
 

• Definition of self-neglect and how to identify it
• Why self-neglect is a form of abuse
• What we can do to support those who self-neglect or whom we suspect self-neglect
• Safeguarding and the local authority response across Berkshire West
• Some brief case study examples
• Time for Q+A

The Berkshire West, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire (BOB) Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) board meets in public from 12.30pm to 2pm on Friday, 27th January 2023 (immediately after the Berkshire West online strategy consultation meeting for BOB ICP . The in-person meeting will be at: Oxfordshire County Council, Council Chambers, County Hall, New Road, Oxford OX1 1ND. The meeting papers are attached below. To attend the meeting online click here . To see the announcement of this meeting click here .

 This extract from the Covid-19 recovery report on the Reading view of the Berkshire Public Health Observatory shows how life expectancy varies with deprivation.

The BOB (Bucks, Oxon and Berks West) Integrated Care System has its strategy set by its Integrated Care Partnership which includes NHS, local authorities and voluntary, social enterprise and charitable organisations. The draft strategy is currently under consultation There will be an online public meeting for Berkshire West about the strategy at 11am on Friday 27th January 2023. To receive details of the meeting click here .

NHS England has published its 2023/24 priorities and operational planning guidance. On the key issues of employee retention it has little to offer: "Improve retention and staff attendance through a systematic focus on all elements of the NHS People Promise". And what does the NHS People Promise say? "We are recognised and appreciated whether a simple thank you for our day-to-day work, or formal recognition for our dedication, such as every decade of service to the NHS. We have a fair salary, competitive pension, and an attractive package of extended benefits, whatever our role. We have more choices. We can buy and sell unused holiday and arrange unpaid leave, if this is what wed prefer. We also enjoy enhanced maternity and shared parental leave We have access to employee assistance programmes for advice and support on issues like caring responsibilities and financial wellbeing." There are targets for reducing bed occupancy and A&E waiting times, but no discussion of the level of demand which is causing difficulties. The document s available below.