Patients urged to use other services before hospital

A hospital trust boss has urged people to do all they can to use other services before attending its emergency department as winter approaches.

James Blythe, who has led the Royal Berkshire NHS Trust since May, said its staff saw 6% more patients in September than in the same month in 2025.

He said it has created another 50 treatment slots a day at its urgent care centre, which is on the Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) site in Reading.

At the start of of the year, nearly 500 people a day were attending the RBH's emergency department as seasonal viruses and cold weather caused problems.

"We need support from our local community. Heading into the winter period we know the risks are around flu so we urge everyone to get vaccinated," Blythe said.

"We know that we need our local community to access other forms of care, for example pharmacy, 111 and general practice, wherever they can."

Blythe added: "We know that there's a significant group of patients currently who attend [the hospital] who are actually better seen by a GP rather than by hospital clinicians and that's why we've worked with GPs to put on more capacity."

Any potential rebuild of the Reading hospital will not start until 2037 at the earliest and could start as late as 2039 under government plans revealed in 2025.

It will leave hospital staff in Reading battling ageing buildings, some of which are nearly 200-years-old.

Blythe said it has "invested hugely" in ventilation and air conditioning to deal with hot summers, like the one earlier this year.