Trust wide news
Chief Executive’s Blog
Chief Executive Prof Joe Rafferty CBE wrote his latest blog on the excitement of Eurovision around Liverpool and used the start of Mental Health Awareness Week to highlight the variety of suicide prevention training modules now available for free with the Zero Suicide Alliance. You can read Joe’s full blog here.
Recruitment event for mental health and learning disability nurses
Are you a qualified mental health or learning disability nurse looking for a new challenge and to work in innovative and futuristic facilities? If so, why not complete an application and we’ll invite you along to our next big recruitment event on 1 June 2023, where we’ll be recruiting for vacancies at our new low secure unit, Aspen Wood, based at Maghull Health Park.
For our registered mental health and learning disability nurses at Aspen Wood, there will be a premia of £1200pa and we’re offering a "golden handshake" of £1500 on completion of induction. More information can be found on our website.
If secure care isn’t for you, why not attend our event at Hartley Hospital in Southport on 10 June 2023 where there’s also a wide variety of roles available suiting candidates with all levels of experience and qualifications. If you, or anyone you know, wants to join one of the most innovative trusts in the North West, why not have a look at our current vacancies?
International Nurses’ Day celebrations
Mersey Care marked this important event in the calendar with a gathering of 200 of our nurses at Aintree Racecourse. They heard about the amazing work our preceptorship team does and how our international recruits are enjoying working here and now part of our Mersey Care family. The afternoon was hosted by the inspirational Steve Head as he aimed to deliver a 149 day to everyone! We also had a visit from senior NSE colleagues to our services: hear from Hilary Garrett, Deputy Chief Nurse for England as she marked the day and shared a personal message about what it means to her.
Freedom of the Borough of Sefton awarded to Mersey Care
Mersey Care staff attended an event to mark the Trust being awarded the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Sefton for their hard work and dedication in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Staff were invited to a ceremony at the Lakehouse at Crosby Lakeside alongside Chair Rosie Cooper and Deputy Chief Executive of Clinical Services and Chief Nurse, Trish Bennett. More information about the highest ceremonial honour Sefton Council can bestow can be found on our website.
Pictured above (left to right): Anne Bennett (Assistant Director of Nursing), Wendy Heckles (Head of Operations), Rosie Cooper, Trish Bennett, Karina Woodyer-Smith (Deputy Division Director for Community Services).
Physical Health
Vauxhall dental services now accepting children
Vauxhall Personal Dental Services, based within Vauxhall Health Centre, Limekiln Lane, Liverpool L5 8XR, is currently accepting children within the Vauxhall area as new NHS patients.
Availability is limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. If you would like to register your child, please contact a member of our Dental Reception Team on 0151 295 3770 or call in to the clinic.
Gardening and walking activities at The Life Rooms
It’s been all about outdoor activities for the start of the month at The Life Rooms with National Gardening week (1 to 7 May) and it’s also National Walking Month. The Life Rooms implements green social prescribing initiatives into its service, with walking groups in partnership with The Canal and Rivers Trust, and a gardening group at The Life Rooms Walton Community Garden.
Mental Health News
New Liverpool campaign launched for Dementia diagnosis
Mersey Care is launching a new campaign across Liverpool designed to ease concerns about diagnosis with the publication of new ‘memory cards’ in public buildings and supermarkets across the city. Find out more information on our website.
To help reduce anxieties about the assessment process, we have launched a new animation which explains, what to expect from a Neuropsychology Assessment.
Same service but new name – IAPT is now NHS Talking Therapies
Our Improved Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services are being renamed NHS Talking Therapies as part of a national rebranding exercise. All similar services will use the same name across the country by the end of 2023.
Following an extensive national consultation process NHS Talking Therapies was voted the most accessible name, and the easiest one to understand, by a wide range of staff, charities, patients and the public. This will replace our current names, Talk Liverpool and Think Wellbeing. More information on the change can be found on our website.
Ground breaking Life Rooms services unveiled in secure services
Mersey Care has begun a ground breaking new Life Rooms service designed to help some of the most vulnerable members of society within its high secure mental health services.
The new service has been unveiled within Ashworth Hospital and will provide an extensive and enhanced range of social support, resources and educational sessions to patients requiring a high secure environment, for the first time in the service’s history. More details can be found on the website.
MCMagazine - out now
Our spring MC magazine is out. Read about:
- Make Time to Talk how we talk to our children is how they communicate with the world
- Talk About Life How we spend our days is how we spend our life – is that still true at the end of life? We talk to palliative care specialists
- Finding the balance when you live with a food intolerance – we ask a specialist dietitian how to maintain a good relationship with what you eat.
Why not give the whole magazine a read via our website?
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