Mayor Joanne's plan to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls

A radical new approach to tackling violence against woman and young girls has been launched by Liverpool's 1st female Mayor.

Among the aims of the 3 year strategy are:-

• Ensuring that demand for services is better met.

• For women and girls to feel confident in calling out and challenging inappropriate behaviour.

• A robust and consistent approach to raising awareness and taking action in Schools.

It follows three stages of rigorous consultation to engage various sectors and social groups across Liverpool, including young girls and students who shared their experiences in and out of school, as well as organisations involved in supporting those affected.

There are 250,000 women in Liverpool and it is estimated that 30 per cent of women and girls experience violence in some form in their lifetime.

Between October 2021 and September 2022, Merseyside Police were called out to 14,935 domestic abuse incidents, an average of 1,245 per month. This resulted in 12,287 recorded crimes, an average of 1,024 per month.

The 28 page strategy outlines five priority ambitions:-

• Response to victim survivors - including:- making sure there is sufficient provision, a robust and consistent approach to increased awareness raising and action in schools, improved confidence in the services offered, and for women and girls to be confident they can travel safely on public transport and report issues if they arise.

• Response to perpetrators - including:- sufficient community based perpetrator programmes and robust evaluation and scrutiny to measure their impact.

• Sustainable funding - a focus on ensuring demand is better met, and for voluntary and community sector organisations to have flexibility so their core costs are met.

• Changing the narrative - for women and girls be able to feel safe in calling out and challenging victim shaming, misogyny and inappropriate behaviour from boys and men; campaigning to have misogyny categorised as a hate crime, and for ‘low-level’ behaviours to be treated the same as high-level offences

• Governance and accountability - clarity of decision making, reporting and oversight of violence against women and girls within the council and how transparency is achieved, and a clear process for any feedback or concerns to be escalated

In addition to the strategy, Liverpool City Council, together with Police Commissioner Emily Spurrell, has secured £846k from the Home Office for the Safer Streets Liverpool project which has seen an increased uniformed police presence around transport hubs and on key bus routes, more CCTV, help point and a text message system to report concerns.

Last year, a 5 year funding package was announced to support survivors of sexual violence by Merseyside’s Police Commissioner in partnership with local councils including Liverpool, and the NHS.

Mayor of Liverpool, Joanne Anderson, said:- "I'm proud to launch Liverpool City Council’s new strategy which I believe has the power to be transformative for thousands of women and girls across Liverpool. Violence against women and girls, by its very nature, can be more nuanced and complicated than other crimes. Often perpetrators are known by their victims and it takes real courage for them to come forward. It also takes highly skilled, strong and compassionate people working in the field to ensure that victims and families are sufficiently supported, and here in Liverpool we are very lucky to have incredible agencies working at a grassroots level. This strategy will build on the fantastic work of existing organisations to tackle the issues for victims and their families. I am determined to bring about change for the thousands of women and girls who right now, are living in fear and are at risk of violence in our city. We have to be their voice and act now - and I believe this strategy is the first step.”

Paula Nolan, Chief Executive of Liverpool Domestic Abuse Service, added:- "We were delighted to be involved in putting together this strategy. We wanted to take part because we know how passionate Mayor Joanne is about tackling the issue and making a difference. We see hundreds of women every year who are all affected by VAWG. We know what services that they want because they tell us, so it was great to be able to input into the strategy in a very positive way. I hope this strategy means women and girls will feel and be safer. I hope it means all services are trained to respond effectively to women and girls impacted by violence and abuse and that people are made aware of how their behaviour, sexist attitudes and misogyny impacts women and girls.”

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Major issues are being addressed at Southport Hospital A&E

BACK in December 2022, the UK's medical services where being pushed to the limits, but on the night of the 28 December 2022, Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals Accident and Emergency  (A&E) departments are extremely busy. Outside temperature was quite nippy and we also had intermittent rain. This meant people arrived in coats, but inside Southport's A&E it was unbearably hot, and also crowded. This lead to many other issues, related to the hot temperatures and the long waiting times.  Sadly, our Editor had to attended and was shocked to see what was going on.  Several members off the public had complained about the conditions and waiting times to those on the administration desk, on the entrance. What made it worse was the lack of food and drinks.  As a result, we told Southport's MP Damien Moore MP about our concerns and those of the others within the Accident and Emergency  Waiting Room, that night.  We also attempted to get in contact with the Trust. Following on from this we also found out that  that the heating problems were not an isolated occurrence within the Hospital, and it had been going on for some time.

This week we had a reply to our questions, sent to us via the Office of  Damien Moore MP. The letter that was sent from Southport Hospital's Managing Director, Anne-Marie Stretch, reads as follows:- "Thank you for your email dated 09 January 2023 in relation to your constituent's experience in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department at Southport Hospital. I am sorry that you needed to raise these concerns on behalf of your constituent. It is our ambition to deliver the highest standard of care and therefore I take all queries and concerns seriously. We have reviewed the themes of the concern and hope that our response provides assurance on actions being taken. Temperature in the waiting room. I'm extremely sorry that there was discomfort experienced by your constituent because of the temperature in the A&E waiting room at Southport's A&E Department. We did experience some difficulties in mid-December 2022 following the extreme cold snap that resulted in several the pipes freezing which in turn caused temporary loss of heating. Following the restoration of the heating in the A&E department, there was a short period (12 to 16 hours) where unfortunately several areas of the department did reach increased levels of heat. This required a further adjustment to the heating settings. The heating system is an old system and runs across the whole hospital and unfortunately the A&E Department cannot access or adjust the heat settings directly without the support of the Estates Team. If the waiting room, or the cubicles reach temperatures that are too hot or cold, the Estates Team are called to support. I would like to offer sincere apologies that your constituent’s experience fell below the level of service that we wish to deliver. Please be assured that the Trust is considering ways of further developing the estate in the A&E Department including the waiting area to improve patient experience. Access to drinks in the waiting area During December 2022, the A&E Department seen unprecedented levels of demand and as a result, some stock including cups were used faster than expected. The Facilities Matron has confirmed that the vending machine company attend cach week to check that the vending machine is in working order and to replenish any stocks. There is also a designated member of staff on duty providing drinks (hot and cold) as well as food (sandwiches and snacks) across the department; this does include the waiting room. These rounds can be undertaken either by a member of the nursing team or one of our invaluable volunteers. It is the responsibility of this member of staff who is undertaking these rounds to check that the water machines have cups available. Due to the busyness of the department, unfortunately this does not appear to have happened on this occasion. I am extremely sorry that there were no cups when your constituent attended and that there were inadequate efforts made to address this once their concern was raised. The Trust have now included the check of cups to the 4-hourly round undertaken by the Nurse in Charge of the department to give enhanced oversight of this. As a result of your constituent’s concern please be assured that the importance of keeping patients and their relatives hydrated has been reinforced to staff as well as a reminder of the process for how to access a fresh supply of cups if there are none available in the department. I would like to thank you for raising these issues as we rely on feedback to enable us to improve our services and please be assured that every effort has been made to respond fully to your concerns."

We hope that this issue has now been resolved as the letter suggests.  Please do let us know your thoughts on this news topic... Email our Newsroom at:- News24@SouthportReporter.Com or send us a message on:- Facebook or Twitter.