This year we have relaunched our Help Us Help You campaign to once again help with easing pressure on hospital A&E departments and demand for inpatient beds this winter.

We will continue to push key messages which highlight the different services available and direct people to our dedicated Help Us Help You page, which hosts a wide range of resources. This includes animations on loneliness, urgent mental health services and accessing our Walk In Centres.  

We also have a number of self help guides and apps that cover issues such as alcohol awareness, abuse and sleeping problems. The wide range of topics and resources available is there to help improve everyone’s physical and mental health. We have also included information and advice to help people during the cost of living crisis.

Like last year, we will continue to promote important health messages throughout the winter months on Liverpool Live Radio. In addition, there will be guest speakers from across the Trust sharing using information on a variety of subjects – listen here.

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Previous weekly data

  • The New Royal opening with circa 100 less acute beds and a reconfiguration of services across the Royal and Aintree Hospitals.
  • The continued pressure on services from the complex life’s cohort of the population.
  • The return of increased Covid and potentially unknown variants meaning a longer period of dealing with severe respiratory conditions in adults and children.
  • Uncertainty about the variant and impact of flu, but we are expecting this to be a further challenge in addition to Covid. 
  • The fragility of the care market has never been as difficult to manage, and it is unlikely any new care suppliers will be added by the local authorities and the CQC.
  • The extra heating, petrol and food bills (cost of living) is having a huge impact on individuals and families, which is also exacerbating the needs on health and social care systems as well as challenges to recruitment and retention of staff in home care community roles. 
  • The lack of capacity and solutions to resolve Mental Health delayed packages of care and housing issues by the system means DTOC’s are still excessive and likely to continue over the winter period and subsequent impact on 12hr breeches.
  • Industrial action by the workforce across several professional roles.

This Winter Plan is designed to address the immediate resilience challenges of winter and the significant event of the New Royal site opening, whilst recognising our vision to provide Perfect Care that enables people with physical health and mental health conditions, learning disabilities and addictions to live longer, healthier lives.

Key elements of the strategy include:

  • We will take a population health-based approach to understanding and anticipating the needs of different population groups, supporting people in community settings and where possible their own home, and working with our partners to do this
  • We will significantly increase care coordination for people with complex needs. We will tailor our services to meet people’s needs, particularly as demand for our services increases
  • We will use digital technology as a key enabler of our effort to meet people’s needs, to help us overcome workforce shortages and increase the patient independence threshold with remote monitoring that allows them to feel more secure.

Services that will be key in helping to deliver our objectives, include:

  • ICRAS
  • Walk In Centres
  • Longmoor House
  • 2hr UCR
  • Telehealth
  • District Nurses and Matrons
  • Mental Health Triage cars
  • Freephone mental health crisis lines

You can view the plan here.

Last year’s campaign resulted in nearly 150,000 people attending the Walk In Centres run by Mersey Care, over 46,000 hospital beds were saved and over 8,000 hospital admissions were avoided by ensuring the ‘Help Us, Help You’ messages were sharded across the region.

 

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Cold weather can make some health problems worse and even lead to serious complications. This is why staff are thinking about what they can do to ensure patients and service users are able to keep warm this year.

Did you know that the Institute of Health Inequality forecasts that there are likely to be 13,545 additional deaths in England alone this winter, due to people living in cold homes?

What can I do?

There are five things that you can do to help:

     1. Look out for patients living in cold homes below 18ºC: In appointments, on home visits and when discharging people from inpatient stays consider: is this person returning to a cold home? Do they have the means to heat their home?

      2. Think about people who might be particularly vulnerable: including those with heart or lung conditions, the elderly, those living in fuel poverty or those who have problems communicating their needs to others.

      3. Offer immediate advice: about how they can keep warm by: -

  • Wearing layers, including thermal vests, or items made of wool or cotton
  • Having regular hot drinks and trying to eat at least one hot meal a day
  • Keeping moving
  • Heating one room at a time and spending most time in there
  • Closing curtains at dusk and keeping doors closed between rooms
  • Blocking draughty areas such as window frames, keyholes and under doors
  • Closing bedroom windows at night, switching from summer to winter duvets and using hot water bottles or electric blankets to keep warm in bed
  • Finding out where their local ‘warm space’ is: https://warmspaces.org/
  • If they are over 65, not very mobile or have a health condition try to support them to access the means to heat their home to over 18ºC
  • Check whether they have received the Winter Fuel Payment or are entitled to a Cold Weather Payment from their local council (see details below)

     4. Signpost to organisations

     5. Read more: about keeping warm and well in Winter

Local resources:

St Helens Council's website and Warm Spaces

Sefton Council's warm spaces

Knowsley Council's website and Warm homes referral 

Halton Council's website

Liverpool Council's website

Warrington Council's website

Emergency power cuts are unlikely this winter, however if they do occur, it’s expected that loss of power could be for up to three hours, and this may happen more than once depending on the situation. For further information see the leaflets below: