Health commissioning groups in the Reading area will be holding a town meeting on Tuesday, 12th November from 7pm to 9pm at the Kennet Room (Reading Civic Centre). To book a place please phone 0118 982 2709 or send an email specifying the Reading Call to Action meeting on 12th November to nhs.calltoaction@nhs.net This is a local initiative under NHS England's Call To Action.

South Reading Patient Voice was a motive force in arranging the Dementia and Elderly Care Conference held by South Reading NHS CCG earlier this year. The CCG have now published their account of changes and innovations brought about as a result of that conference. You can read it here.

The Friends and Family Test is to be extended to more NHS and Government services. It currently covers NHS funded acute services for inpatients (including independent sector organisations that provide acute NHS services) and patients discharged from A&E (type 1 & 2). The test is to be extended to maternity services this year. For GP practices, community health services and mental health services FFT, NHS England will expect all service providers to be collecting FFT from January 2015 at the latest,.

Extraordinarily, two GP practices locally advertised only 0844 (5p or 7p a minute) telephone numbers until this Summer. These were London Street Surgery and the Russell Street and Coley Park practices. South Reading Patient Voice raised this with the GP Consortium (pre CCG) nearly two years ago. This summer those practices advertised 0118 numbers as alternatives. A reasonable way to treat hard-pressed patients. But why, oh why is the 0844 number still advertised at the top of their practice web page when the 0118 number is right at the bottom? What are they like?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates about two thirds of all premature deaths are avoidable that is, they could potentially be avoided by public health action (preventable), better health care (amenable) or both and that preventable deaths make up about half of all avoidable deaths. The opportunity is great for Public Health England and the new public health system to contribute to a reduction in the underlying causes and risks of poor health smoking, excess alcohol consumption, physical inactivity and rising levels of obesity.