Simon Warren, Interim Managing Director of Reading Borough Council, speaking at the Audit and Governance Committee meeting on 29th September, declared that the Council was on the cusp of going to law with the NHS CCGs over the costs of continuing care for Reading residents. Councillor Eileen McElligot noted that the Council and the CCGs had been in dispute for years about these costs.

The BMA's Junior Doctors' Committee has called off strike action in its continuing opposition to the NHS Employers' new contract. We don't yet know what they will propose as actions against the NHS Providers' new contract.

Reading's Health and Wellbeing Board meets in public in the Council Chamber in the Civic Offices on Bridge Street at 2pm on 7th October. The agenda and papers will be found 5 days before the meeting on the meeting web site .

The information that patients need to understand how well their GP surgery is performing is the subject of the talk and discussion led by Francis Brown of the Priory Avenue PPG on 28th September at 6pm to 7.45pm at Reading Community Learning Centre, 94, London Street, RG1 4SJ. We will also hear news from the CCG and patient participation groups, Healthwatch and discuss our future activities. The meeting is open to everyone registered with a GP practice in the South Reading CCG clinical area.

Mr Luke March has been appointed as chair of the Western Berkshire Accountable Care System - a collaboration of the principal NHS organisations in Western Berkshire. We are facing a period of several years in which NHS funding growth will be around 1% per year on average - hardly enough to keep up with population growth, let alone the ageing of the population, increasing living standards or advances in medicine.