Circuit Lane surgery in Southcote lies outside the South Reading CCG area but developments there could be an indicator of future changes here. When the GP partners were unable to recruit a replacement for a partner who had announced their resignation, they found themselves unable to guarantee the safe continuation of the service and all resigned together. NHS England (Thames Valley) was left with the problem of how to push forward the GP service for around 11,000 patients from Southcote and areas further afield.

South Reading CCG has received winter pressures funding which can be used for GP services. It will be used to open a 7-evening a week childrens' urgent care centre at a location still to be determined over the winter months. The sum of 129,000 awarded to the South Reading NHS CCG will provide 20 20-miinute appointments between 5:30pm and 8pm every evening until April 2015. It is hoped that as well as aiding the children of South Reading this arrangement will lessen the pressure on the A&E department at the Royal Berks Hospital.

The CQC has today published risk indices for most GP practices, using readily available data to give an indicator of the priority that should be afforded to their inspection. The great majority of South Reading practices fall into the low risk category - Band 6 - along with about half the practices in England. So we can expect few early inspections by CQC at most South Reading practices. The banding is based on a scoring according to a number of criteria available from practice surveys and practice returns.

We will be meeting between 6.15pm and 7:45pm on Wednesday, 29th October 2014 in the Reading Community Learning Centre 10, Eaton Place, RG1 7LP (see Agenda for directions) . There will be an election for group officers, reports of current developments in local healthcare and a talk and discussion led by Dr Rosemary Croft on "What will Parity for Mental Healthcare Require?"

We will be meeting between 6.15pm and 7:45pm on Wednesday, 26th November 2014 in the Reading Community Learning Centre 10, Eaton Place, RG1 7LP (see Agenda for directions) . There will be an election for group officers, reports of current developments in local healthcare and a talk and discussion led by Dr Rosemary Croft on "What will Parity for Mental Healthcare Require?"