The NHS England board meeting on 3 May 2013 endorsed proposals for an external review of the model used to roll out the NHS 111 service. The 111 service replaces both NHS Direct and the separate specific telephone numbers needed to call out-of-hours GP services. Official advice is that "you should use the NHS 111 service if you urgently need medical help but it's not a life-threatening situation." This, of course, begs the question of the caller's ability to decide reliably when an urgent situation is life threatening.

After the debate and vote in the House of Lords on 24th April 2013 and the ending of the session of Parliament the new NHS Procurement Regulations have passed into law. The regulations govern how public authorities like Clinical Commissioning Groups may lawfully arrange for services to be provided.

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The Board of the South Reading CCG meets in public for the first time on Wednesday 19th June at 12:30pm at the Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road, Reading RG1 1EX You, as a member of the public will be welcome to attend the meeting. You will hear summaries of useful reports on commissioned health care in the South Reading CCG area, including the Patient Experience and Patient Safety reports, the financial report, safeguarding report, Commissioning Outcomes report and other matters.

From the 15th May the way to access out-of-hours GP service in South Reading CCG area will be to phone 111 - the new NHS non-emergency number. This is a nationally designed service which will cover all non-emergency calls. 999 continues for emergency calls. The new 111 number is intended to take over completely from NHS Direct in South Reading by mid-June. Other parts of Berkshire West are on the same timetable.