NORTH West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has introduced special maternity training and equipment for its Ambulance crews to enhance emergency care given to pregnant women in the North West. In 2021, NWAS handled over 24,000 NHS 111 and 999 maternity related calls combined from across the North West. This can included providing urgent and emergency care to pregnant women and babies suffering from complex health complications or when these patient groups may require transfers into Hospitals. Providing safe and personal maternity care to our patients is important and NWAS says that they have invested in a pre-Hospital training package by PROMPT Maternity Foundation Charity to enhance this. The training is the 1st of its kind to be delivered within the emergency service at NWAS and funding was secured for it by our Consultant Midwife, Stephanie Heys, from Cheshire and Merseyside's local maternity systems and Health Education England (HEE).

Stephanie says:- "This brings so many opportunities for us as an organisation to work and train together with our local Maternity Units and Community Midwifery Teams. The 1st sessions which took place in Merseyside in May was well received by clinicians in Team NWAS. Looking ahead, we would like to partner with local maternity systems across the NWAS footprint to secure additional funding and scale this training across the Region."

Catherine McLennan, Director of Women's Health and Maternity (WHaM) Programme, Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership said:- "We are delighted to partner with NWAS and support another great initiative which puts the safety of women and their babies at the heart of care. Multi disciplinary teams who train and work together are essential for continuous improvement, and we look forward to all other LMSs following this work in Cheshire and Merseyside."

As part of the funding already secured via the Cheshire and Mersey Maternity Networks, NWAS have been able to secure our 1st practice development Midwife, Rachel, who has joined our midwifery team for 6 months to help scale and deliver this training. It has also enabled NWAS to successfully bid for HEE funding to purchase maternity training equipment, including a suite of preterm baby dummies, with:- 'real life,' accurate and functioning anatomy. This equipment will enable high quality team training in rare emergencies that can occur during childbirth. It will also ensure that the simulated scenarios embedded within PROMPT training are realistic, engaging, and innovative. It is a positive development for emergency care for pregnant women.
 

THE Friends of Victoria Park, Crosby, are holding a fantastic Elves and Fairies In The Park event, on 31 August 2022. This free event will be running from:- 11am to 3pm. We are told that this event will included:- Face Painting, Unicorn Rides, Story Telling, Lancashire Hawks and Owls Display, Gnomes for Homes, plus lots more. any money raised at the event will go towards future events and activities to be held at the park.
 

SOUTHPORT MP Damien Moore has welcomed the news that 611 extra Police Officers have been recruited by Merseyside Police as part of the Government's manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 more Officers nationally. The boost brings the total number of Police Officers in Merseyside up to 4,058, meaning that more than 15% of the Region's Police have been recruited under the Conservative Government's drive. The UK is well on track to fulfil its commitment to recruit 20,000 additional Police Officers by March 2023, with 70% of the target now met. Across the country's 43 Police forces, an additional 13,790 Officers have been recruited, and they are already having an impact in tacking crime and keeping communities safe. On top of the additional Police numbers, national Police funding has risen to a record £15.8 billion, which comes alongside a new £150 million Safer Streets Fund being invested over the next 3 years into community projects to prevent crime, with a focus on neighbourhood crime, anti social behaviour, and violence against women and girls.

Damien Moore, MP for Southport, said:- "I'm very pleased that the Region's Police recruitment drive has been so successful and that we now have over 600 more Police Officers on our streets than we did in September 2019. I know from my regular meetings with local policing leaders that Southport is seeing the benefits of these addition resources, with more Police on the street in the Town and dedicated teams covering the Town Centre. The Police do difficult work under challenging circumstances, and I pay tribute to all those who begin a rewarding career making our streets safer. Increasing Police numbers was a commitment the Conservatives made in our manifesto, on which I stood, and the British people overwhelmingly gave our plans their backing at the general election. I'm delighted to see that we are successfully delivering on those commitments."
 

A local professional artist, Neil Prior from Ainsdale, needs no introduction to the Region having already clocked up 3 successful exhibitions in Southport since relocating from Leicestershire in 2019 where he already had 2 solo displays of his highly accomplished oil paintings under his belt. Although self taught Neil's output is all encompassing, ranging from portraiture, scapes, still life, old masters, wildlife, nature to more recent abstract work. He is still probably best known locally as a dog portraiture artist having now completed over 20 dog commission paintings since arriving in Southport. Always willing to share his talent, as part of this year's Arts Trail in Southport, Neil ran an Open Studio/Exhibition in addition to facilitating an oil painting class for Art Students, at Southport College. Hot off the easel, Neil's latest experimental project:- 'Long Lost Blues,' was completed using metallic oils that illuminate in the dark to give the composition real:- 'pop.' He said:- "The idea originally stemmed from my painting of a saxophonist whilst playing with some old Rembrandt oils and a palette knife. The surprising end result appeared spookily skeletal. The title of:- 'Long Lost Blues' encouraged me to paint a further 5 individual canvases." The solo musicians have now been painted collectively onto a single retiled large 1 metre x 1.5 metre canvas with an additional musician making the group up to 7:- "The Now Found Blues is the largest canvas I have painted to date as an artist."

Also on show will be a series of scapes motivated by a recent vacation to the Greek Island of Santorini:- "A recent holiday has inspired me to continue painting with the palette knife as well as the brush, bringing together a selection of seascapes, landscapes and Cityscapes referenced from photographs that I took on site."