**Mersey Care improves:- 'Help Us, Help You' resources to aid Cheshire and Merseyside residents this winter**

MERSEY Care has enhanced and improved its:- 'Help Us Help You' website page designed to give Cheshire and Merseyside residents advice and tips to support their general wellbeing during the colder months.

The website page, a 1 stop shop for tips and advice about keeping warm, looking after your physical and mental health and when to go to A&E or ring 999, is aiming to keep residents away from Hospitals and inpatient units, which are traditionally high in demand during winter.

It's the 3rd year of the:- 'Help us, Help You' campaign which in 2022 helped save over 44,000 bed days while there were nearly 150,000 attendances in our Walk In Centres / Urgent Treatment Centres. The Mersey Care winter messages also generated over 1.8 million social media impressions.

Dr Noir Thomas, Mersey Care's Chief Medical Officer explained:- "We've run the:- 'Help Us, Help You' campaign for a few years now and we've found it very successful in guiding people to choose the right services. I'd urge everyone from Cheshire and Merseyside to look at our webpage for all the advice you'll need this winter. Each winter the demand for services seems to increase annually, so we're doing everything we can to help colleagues working in A&E departments and Hospitals."

Among the additions to the webpage are:-

A series of adverts going out on Greatest Hits Radio giving hints and tips to stay well this winter.
A series of new animations covering urgent mental health support, top tips to improve your mental wellbeing, information about Walk In Centres / Urgent Treatment Centres, the importance of self care and how to beat loneliness.

Mersey Care, 1 of the largest mental and community health trusts in the country, has also developed a number of free online self help guides available for:- depression, stress, panic and many other issues...

A spokesperson from NHS Cheshire and Merseyside said:- "Across Cheshire and Merseyside, the NHS is preparing for what is expected to be another busy and challenging winter. We're working closely with local trusts and other partners in health and social care to help keep people well, raise the profile of mental health helplines, reduce long waits for care, and speed up Hospital discharge by ensuring that people can get the care they need in the community more quickly. The public can also play their part by taking simple measures to stay well this winter, such as getting winter Vaccines when invited to, keeping warm, staying active, looking out for others, and choosing the right service when they need help or advice. Please remember that A&E should only be used for major, life threatening illnesses and injuries. For conditions which are less urgent, please contact NHS 111, or consider visiting a local pharmacy or NHS Walk In Centre, or GP practice for advice and support instead."

Edge Hill researchers lead Being Human Festival events

EDGE Hill University has been selected as 1 of 5 flagship hubs for this year's Being Human Festival. Inspired by the Ancient Greek concept of sacred Hospitality, researchers from Edge Hill will lead a programme of events titled:- 'Be My Guest' at venues in Liverpool City Centre including:- FACT and St Luke's, better known as the Bombed Out Church.

Activities including:- screenings, creative writing workshops and a comedy quiz will explore themes of migration and belonging, otherness, healthcare and nature.

Dr Zayneb Allak, who has overseen the creation of the programme, said:- "The events all respond to xenia, the Ancient Greek concept of sacred Hospitality, and xenos, the foreigner to whom that Hospitality is extended. When Derrida discusses it, he invites us to think about Hospitality as a question of the:- 'other.' How do we host the other and how might we be the other that's hosted? Since 2020 we've had to renegotiate Hospitality:- we hosted a deadly virus but couldn't host our friends, we waited for Zoom hosts to:- 'let us in,' but weren't able to accept in-person Hospitality, not even from a Hospitality industry that begged us to be their guest. It wasn't just Covid; Hospitality, as a question of the other, is key to so many contemporary debates; around crises in asylum, care and climate, and around the drawing-up of borders in the UK and elsewhere. At the heart of this programme is the conviction that a creative conversation about Hospitality is what we need."

Running from:- Friday, 10 November to Saturday, 18 November 2023, diversity and inclusion sits at the heart of a programme designed to explore guest-host relations and the question of Hospitality.

Events will be free and open to all and hosted in accessible venues in Liverpool City Centre:-

Guest or Pest; Hospitality-themed comedy quiz hosted by drag queen Stephanie Legs.
In Other Words:- Hit the Road; writing workshop and screening of Iranian film:- 'Hit the Road.'
In Other Words:- God's Own Country; writing workshop and screening of:- 'God's Own Country.'
In Other Words:- The Trouble with Nature; writing workshop and screening of:- 'The Trouble with Nature.'
In Other Words; writing workshop building on activities related to screenings.
No Angels; immersive theatre performance exploring nurse's experiences of working in healthcare.
Holy Hosts; pop up exhibition, short film screenings and performances celebrating work of people who support homelessness charities.
Keyside; performance by Liverpool band that includes EHU alumni.
The Other Side of Hope; discussion of journeys in refugee and immigrant literature and writing workshop.
What's her story? An interactive talk and pop up exhibition that celebrates research and achievements of women whose education and teacher training was hosted by Edge Hill College.

The events explore questions around race, gender and sexuality, as well as engaging with arts and communities who have experienced issues relating to:- shelter, care, war, poverty and oppression.

Locating the events in Hospitality venues on Bold Street means that they directly support the local Hospitality industry, bringing visitors to a sector that has experienced difficulties in recent years.

Being Human is the UK's national festival of the humanities. A celebration of humanities research through public engagement, it is led by the School of Advanced Study, the UK's national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities.

The festival works in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy to support humanities public engagement across the UK through more than 200 events.

The national festival returns to locations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from:- 9 November to 18 November 2023.

All Being Human events are free, with booking required for some activities:- BeingHumanFestival.Org.

Every year, researchers in the humanities; from:- literature and history, languages and philosophy, art history, classics and more; produce enjoyable events for public audiences that emphasise working with local communities to share ideas for mutual benefit.