The NHS across BOB is here to help you stay well over winter and during the festive season. If you do fall ill, you can get advice from your local pharmacy or via NHS 111 (see story below). 

In addition, the NHS App provides advice on hundreds of conditons and treatments and lets you find local health services - download it here 

For more advice and information to help you and your loved ones stay well this winter visit our Winter Health Hub here.

If your child is unwell the Oxfordshire Healthier Together website provides accurate and up-to-date advice to help get them better - you can also download the Healthier Together app here.

You can watch our videos about having a winter plan which includes stocking up on over-the-counter medicines and booking a free flu or Covid-19 vaccination if you are eligible watch the videos on our YouTube site.

This winter and over the festive season we are encouraging people to get to the help they need by using NHS 111.

Operators assess and direct people to the most appropriate local service, including urgent treatment centres, minor injury and first aid units, GP practices, and consultations with a pharmacist.

And, if needed, they will arrange a call back from a nurse, doctor or paramedic.

NHS 111 is an easy and convenient way to get urgent help for a wide range of health problems.  

People who need help in another language can call 111 and ask for an interpreter; British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact 111 using the NHS 111 BSL interpreter service by visiting 111.nhs.uk, and text relay users can call 18001 111.

The current Covid-19 vaccination programme stops on 20 December 2024 at local GP practices and community pharmacies for most patients.

You can still get a flu or RSV vaccine after 20 December if you are eligible for these, so please book now.

You can find local vaccination clinic offers, advice, and eligibilty at: Walk-in vaccine clinics.

Key information for winter Covid-19 vaccinations:

• Final appointments on the National Booking Service will be on 20 December. But some outreach projects will continue until 31 January 2025.
• The walk-in finder for Covid-19 vaccine will continue to 31 January 2025: Find a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination site - NHS, or through a pharmacy: Find a pharmacy
• 119 telephone number will continue until 31 January 2025, offering patients advice and signposting to appropriate services.
• Parents of children at clinical risk age 6 months to 4 years old can self-refer (Referral form here) or their GP will refer them to some clinics across BOB. More details are on our Stay Well BOB seasonal vaccines webpages

You can watch a short video which explains how some local pharmacists can treat seven common conditions without the need to see a GP or for a prescription which include: earache, sore throat, sinusitis, shingles, impetigo, infected insect bites, and urinary tract infections. 

Your local pharmacy team can also provide advice and treatment for common winter illnesses such as coughs and colds. More details are on our Stay Well website

If you have a long-term respiratory condition like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma, winter can worsen your symptoms. To manage these better we have plenty of advice and tips on our Stay Well website here 

You can also download the free 'personalised winter health guide' with advice on breathing well in cold weather, available on the Asthma+Lung UK website here 

As the chill of winter sets in, the local NHS wants to hear from you on how you prepare for the colder months to stay well, and if any of the adverts and advice we share with the public prompts you into action. 

We want you to take part in a short survey to help us support our communities better during the winter - it can be a challenging time for many, with colder weather, shorter days, and the increased risk of illnesses. 

To complete the survey visit our engagement website 'Your Voice BOB' here. You might have to register on the website to access the survey. 

By sharing your experiences and thoughts, you can help shape our winter campaign to ensure you have the best advice to stay well and healthy. 

Anyone living or working across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West can take part and responses are confidential. They will only be used to improve  communications and understanding of community needs. 

NHS staff are working harder than ever to get services back on track, to get waiting lists down and consistently deliver the best care.

We know change is needed. But we also know that many of the solutions we need are already here, working somewhere in the NHS today.

Whether you have a little to say or a lot, your views, experiences and ideas will shape immediate steps and long-term changes: a new 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS.

This is a once in a generation opportunity to make the NHS fit for the future. Together we can fix it. We need your voice. Go to change.nhs.uk to find out how you can take part.

Are you aged over 12 and diagnosed with diabetes, or do you care for someone who is?

Whether you have ever attended a diabetic eye screening appointment or not, the NHS wants to hear from you.

By completing a short survey, you can help the NHS to improve local diabetic eye screening services. The survey should only take 10 minutes to complete and is anonymous. 

For more information and to take part in this survey, please visit the NHS England South East website here - the survey is also avaialble in easy read, different languages and hard copy. It closes on 10 January 2025. 

BOB ICB is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Ben Riley to this post.

Ben is currently Managing Director of Community Health Services, Dentistry and Primary Care at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. 

Ben (pictured) who will be joining the ICB in the new year, said: "I look forward to working with my new colleagues, our patients, carers and the full range of partners to improve people’s experience of healthcare, reduce health inequalities and enable people to live healthier lives for longer.”

For more details visit the BOB ICB website here 

We are running these workshops which offer free one to one support around basic digital skills, and show people how to use the NHS App and GP websites to access health support and advice promptly.

If you need to improve your confidence on navigating services via the internet on your smart phone, laptop or tablet please join us at a Digital Café - they take place at different venues across BOB on a regular basis. 

To find a Digital Café near you visit our website here 

In addition, BOB ICB will continue to provide local communities with free reconditioned laptops that staff no longer use to help people get access to digital services. 

We are still urging the public to come forward as usual for care during collective action by GP practices which started in August this year. 

Practices remain open and patients should continue to contact their practice as normal and attend a scheduled appointment at their surgery unless told otherwise. More advice can be found on the BOB ICB website.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust welcomed their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, along with the Lord-Lieutenant and High Sheriff, to the NSIC in November to visit patients and staff as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations.

The Duke, who is Patron of the British Paralympic Association, and the Duchess (pictured on her visit) received a warm reception from patients and staff at the NSIC located at the Stoke Mandeville hospital near Aylesbury.

They learned more about the heritage of the centre, being the birthplace of the Paralympics, from Mr Maurizio Belci, consultant in spinal cord injuries. More details here 

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is sending more patients for mechanical thrombectomy (MT) than any other district hospital in the country, figures reveal.

MT is most commonly used to treat acute ischemic strokes, which is a life-threatening condition that occurs when a blood clot or plaque blocks blood flow to the brain.

The Stroke Team, based at Wycombe Hospital, sent more than 8.7 per cent of stroke patients for thrombectomy during 2023-24, compared to the national average of just 2.7 per cent. More details here

Families in Buckinghamshire can now access this free support and guidance service provided by Autism Early Support.

It is designed to support the needs of children and families around neurodivergence, and offers a wealth of resources, including videos, reading materials, parent support groups, live workshops, and discussion forums.

Buckinghamshire parents can register and log in to the portal here.

Local professionals can find out more about the portal at demonstration sessions run by Buckinghamshire Council in December and January 2025 - more details here 

Buckinghamshire Council is making it easier for you to get online advice about these services. 

Care Advice Bucks is the first stop for information, advice and guidance to help residents to remain independent and access adult social care support. 

The council is also supporting unpaid carers in Buckinghamshire aged over 18, via Mobilise which provides access to a network of carers, free online support sessions and one to one advice from a carers coach. 

The day surgery team at Stoke Mandeville hospital near Aylesbury completed its first 'high intensity theatres (HIT) list'.

Surgeons carried out 33 pain procedures on a single day in November – 60% more than the usual – to treat patients suffering from debilitating pain.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust wants to roll out HIT across other services in the coming months, just one of the many ways it aims to reduce waiting times. More details here 

Healthwatch Bucks wants people aged 14 to 19 to feedback their experiences of getting healthcare or advice from a GP surgery, around themes such as:  

• Do they feel their voice is being heard?

• What do they need to feel more in control of their healthcare?
• What changes would make their healthcare experience better?

Teenagers can share their views via a short anonymous online survey on the Healthwatch Bucks website here - feedback will be sent to health care providers with any recommendations. 

For a paper copy of the survey, contact Healthwatch Bucks on 01494 32 48 32 or email info@healthwatchbucks.co.uk.

You are requested to forward this survey - which closes on 16 December - to teenagers who might want to take part. 

Sixty people improved their health coaching skills thanks to a 4-day training workshop run by Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy and funded by BOB ICB. 

Participants (pictured) included clinical and non-clinical staff from health, social care and the voluntary sector based in areas of the county with marked levels of health inequalities. 

The training will enable staff to empower people to become more aware and proactive in managing their own health and wellbeing. For more details visit the academy's health coaching website here 

This new digital platform is being introduced in Buckinghamshire, to connect patients with preventative services and activities they might need.

Integrated into GP systems, Joy is designed to bridge the gap between primary care and local community service providers, making access and experience between these services better. 

As a social prescribing tool used in primary care, locally the platform will be available across secondary care, local authorities and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to streamline referrals and patient treatment pathways. 

The platform has been jointly funded for five years by BOB ICB, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and Buckinghamshire Council with a focus on supporting prevention and tackling health inequalities.

The GP Provider Alliance is leading the coordination and rollout of the digital platform and is inviting partners to list their services and integrate their referral pathway into the system, by filling in a form on a website here to add services to the Joy platform 

Congratulations to seven local nurses for gaining their 'Chief Nursing Officer Silver Award' for outstanding contributions to nursing.

The nurses who all work for Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust were presened with the awards by the NHS regional chief nurse Andrea Lewis.

Pictured (l/r) is Andrea Lewis with the nurses holding their awards: Ann Poll, Jose Facultad, May Parsons, Karen Bonner, Jael Ramcharitar, Anne Hutton, Steph Hartley, and Rachael Corser, BOB ICB's Chief Nursing Officer who was in attendance. 

Men aged 40 and over are being asked to take up the offer of a free health check when invited. 

Oxfordshire County Council's funded health check can reduce a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and some types of dementia.

Find out more on the county council’s website.

Oxfordshire’s unpaid carers can now apply for a photo identification card enabling them to prove they are a carer and share their emergency contact details quickly, as well as getting access to support and useful information.

The cards can help in a range of situations from collecting medication on someone else’s behalf to notifying the emergency services that someone depends on you.

The initiative is being funded by Oxfordshire County Council. For more details and to apply for a free card visit the Carers Oxfordshire website here 

This initiative supports people in Oxfordshire to leave hospital more quickly to continue their recovery at home, and has shown significant benefits for residents since its launch last year.

It involves the local NHS, social care and voluntary sector working together to identify the best way of supporting a patient to leave hospital safely and quickly.

The latest figures show it has enabled 23 per cent more people to leave hospital compared with last year. In October, this amounted to 657 people going home from hospital through the programme. More details here 

Patients attending the Horton General Hospital in Banbury for hip fracture treatment are getting high quality care.

Figures show the hospital’s Hip Fracture Team has been named one of the best in the country – for the 12th year in a row.

The team met best practice criteria for nearly 85 per cent of patients, compared with a national average of just under 50 per cent, which puts them in the top five units in the country.

More details are available on the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust website.

You can have your say about phase two of the Warneford Park pre-planning application consultation.

This is being organised by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust as part of a plan to redevelop the Warneford Park site into a major brain health research and innovation campus.

You can attend one of the drop-in exhibition engagement events being held over three days on 5/6/7 December at the Warneford Hospital in Oxford  - no booking required to take part. Find out more on the Trust website here 

Oxford Children’s Hospital has joined forces with the charity Tom's Trust to provide a new clinical psychology service for young patients facing a brain tumour diagnosis.

Tom's Trust has funded a new clinical psychologist to support the needs of children and young patients who are being treated for brain tumours at the hospital - which is run by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. 

Pictured left is Emily Townsend, a Tom's Trust Clinical Psychologist, with Oxford Children’s Hospital colleagues. More details here.

The Tellmi app has been commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council to help improve outcomes for young people across the county.

It provides patients with 365-day access to online support where they can discuss their feelings anonymously, with in-house counsellors intervening to support high-risk users if needed.

Users also have access to over 700 crisis specialists, and local support services through the Tellmi directory. The app can be downloaded at Google Play or the App Store. The webapp can be accessed at Tellmi.app. To find out more visit Tellmi’s website

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has been active over the past month supporting the system-wide winter campaign via social media.

Colleagues from the pharmacy and minor injuries unit teams have all stepped in front of the camera to highlight the excellent care and services they provide to patients; and to highlight the importance of having a flu or Covid-19 vaccination and the need to be prepared for winter. 

A new report reveals two countywide activity programmes are helping to prevent illness, reduce the pressure on the NHS and give children an active, healthy start in life.

The Prevention First report highlights the success of Move Together programme for adults with long term health conditions, showing: 

• It reduced GP appointments by 51 per cent at a cost saving of £396,900 each year.
• People taking part reported 23 per cent fewer falls.

The report also focused on theYouMove programme for families, revealing: 

•  70 per cent increase in the number of adults achieving recommended activity levels.
• 40 per cent reduction in people taking part classed as less active among adults and children.

The report was commissioned by Active Oxfordshire in partnership with BOB ICB, Oxfordshire County Council's Public Health team, Oxford City and local district councils. View the report at: Prevention First Oxfordshire

When Kelly Lewis was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford following a severe bone infection made worse by diabetes, she feared that her leg would have to be amputated below the knee.

Kelly (pictured) had already fractured her ankle in a fall and was admitted to her local hospital following a diagnosis of sepsis, before being stabilised and transferred to the John Radcliffe Hospital for a planned amputation.

However, the team at the specialist Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford said they wanted to try to save Kelly's leg. You can read Kelly’s amazing story of limb-saving reconstruction carried out by staff at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust here

The county’s independent health and care watchdog want your views on areas of health and social care it should focus on over the coming year. 

You can share your thoughts by completing a short, anonymous survey here

If you would like a copy of this survey in another format or language, or would prefer to speak to someone about this, please contact Healthwatch Oxfordshire on 01865 520520 or at hello@healthwatchoxfordshire.co.uk 

The campaign to support Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's new approach to staff recognition has been shortlisted for a prestigious award.

The campaign features in the ‘best internal communications’ category of the UnAwards, a national awards scheme which aims to 'recognise genuine creativity, innovation and brilliant results'.

More than 10,000 individual acts of staff recognition have been carried out since the programme was launched in January 2024 including around 2,800 nominations in the Trust's annual awards.

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been  ‘Highly Commended’ in the ‘Trust of the Year’ category at the HSJ awards.

It was recognised for an outstanding contribution to mental and community healthcare across the county, for providing great patient care, having the best NHS staff engagement in the country, harnessing the latest technology to improve efficiency, and prioritising a culture of learning to improve patient safety.

The Trust also celebrated success in the Data-Driven Transformation Award which was won by the South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative. This is a project led by Berkshire Healthcare's Chief Executive, Julian Emms comprising 27 Trusts and six integrated NHS care systems, and has resulted in a reduction in temporary staff costs of over £125 million. More details on the Trust website 

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust invited staff to take part in its ‘Unity Against Racism’ initiative and make a pledge to support anti-racism in the workplace.

The pledges took place during Black History Month in October to show the Trust's commitment to being an anti-racist organisation.

By pledging against racism, the Trust is taking a stand to challenge discriminatory behaviours, advocate for change and support colleagues from diverse backgrounds. More details on the Trust website here 

This October marked the first anniversary since Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust launched the forum. 

It is a collaborative space bringing together community leaders and organisations from across Berkshire including Acre (Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality), Utilivu Women’s Group, Project Salama, Slough CVS, Samar Collective and Thames Valley Police.

Forum members discuss key issues to address racial disparities in access, experience and outcomes in health services. They have also explored multi-faith education and engagement, the role of mental health services in community care, and the history and contributions of Windrush and South Asian communities. More details on the Trust website here

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is now a member of the Employers Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA), a network of over 1,700 employers working together to take action on domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse affects people of all genders, ages, ethnicities, and sexualities and can have a profound impact not only on individuals but also on their families and colleagues.

Trusts have a responsibility to support staff who have experienced or are experiencing domestic abuse. Being part of EIDA means the Trust will have access to the latest resources and information to help them carry out this vital role. More details here