14 Feb 2022

Life Rooms partner with Public Health Liverpool to help communities

The Life Rooms has teamed up with Public Health Liverpool to launch a mental health initiative which will support individuals and communities with their health and wellbeing following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 12-month pilot will ensure The Life Rooms, a service run by Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust which supports service users and the wider community in dealing with social factors that can impact health, begins today (14 February) and ensures they will now have a presence in local libraries, one stop shops and children’s centres across the city.

It aims to provide communities with practical support and learning opportunities to help their health and wellbeing, including family and caring responsibilities, mental health and physical wellbeing, financial difficulties and housing issues.

Michael Crilly, Mersey Care’s Director of Social Inclusion and Participation, said: “This partnership with Public Health Liverpool provides a real opportunity to reach right into the heart of our communities to provide the help and support that people need right now.

“We don’t really know the full impact of lockdowns and the pandemic on most of the population yet but we do know there continues to be an increase in mental health issues generally. The earlier we can offer help, the better. By getting out into the communities we want to offer practical help and support to those who are struggling and stop them becoming unwell.”

Matthew Ashton, Director of Public Health for Liverpool, said: “Most people will experience low level mental health problems at some point in their lives, as stress, worry, and anxiety have become more commonplace. Sadly, the pandemic has caused more life stressors, experienced over a longer period of time, causing greater levels of harm to wellbeing and mental health in our communities.

“We’re pleased to support community based models such as the Life Rooms, as good mental health and wellbeing makes life better. It helps us form positive relationships and build resilience to cope with the ups and downs that come to us all.”

The Life Rooms will be attending the following locations between 9.30am and 3.30pm:

Garston Library: Monday and Tuesday
Kensington Library: Wednesday and Thursday
Kirkdale One Stop Shop: Monday and Tuesday
Liverpool Central Library: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
Norris Green Library: Wednesday and Friday
Parklands Library: Friday
Toxteth Library: Monday and Friday
Wavertree Children’s Centre: Monday and Thursday
Tuebrook Children’s Centre: Monday and Thursday
County Children’s Centre: Tuesday
Kensington Children’s Centre: Wednesday and Friday.

For further information please contact: Myles Hodgson, Media Manager, 0151 473 2797 myles.hodgson@merseycare.nhs.uk or Communications on 0151 471 2336.

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Mersey Care is a community mental health and physical health provider that delivers a wide range of community health and specialist mental health services across North West England and beyond. Our vision is to strive for perfect, whole-person care that helps the population we serve live happier, healthier lives.

For six of the seven councils within Liverpool City Region – Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Warrington - we provide a range of specialist mental health inpatient services and community physical health, mental health, learning disabilities, addiction services together with acquired brain injury services.

Our clinical services are delivered from over 170 sites across the North West. Our teams are supported by a corporate team based at our offices in Kings Business Park, Prescot, Merseyside. Over 10,000 staff serve a population of 1,442,200.

We also provide secure mental health services for the North West of England, the West Midlands and Wales and specialist learning disability services across Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside. We are one of only three trusts in the country that provide high secure mental health services.

Notes to editors

Editor’s notes:

Further information about the programme: https://www.liferooms.org/public-health-project/

Access to the programme: More information about the service can be found by dropping into any of the locations and speaking to the reception staff.

How to refer: If you would like to access this service outside of the above drop-in days and times, you can do this online by visiting https://www.liferooms.org/pathways-advice-service/ to request a referral.

More information about Life Rooms: https://www.liferooms.org/

The Life Rooms brief history:

In May 2016, Mersey Care opened the very first of its Life Rooms buildings at the former Walton Library in North Liverpool with the aim of supporting our service users and the wider community in dealing with the many social factors that can impact our health. By listening to our service users, it became very clear that that people experiencing poor mental health also experience huge social inequality that leads to still poorer health

The service was so popular and successful, two further centres in Southport and Bootle opened in 2017 and 2018 respectively, offering support around issues such as finance, debt, housing, loneliness and social isolation as well as access to education and employment support opportunities. In 2019 a further two satellite services opened in South Liverpool and within the Playhouse Theatre in Liverpool City Centre.

Mersey Care Fact File

During 2020/21 Mersey Care

employed around 8,000 staff and served a population of almost 11 million people
provided care, treatment and support through its mental health, secure and specialist learning disability services to 40,871 service users
received 190,849 distinct referrals within its community services
provided services from 130 sites both of its own and premises rented from others
had 765 inpatient beds as at 31 March 2021
had 1,805,976 outpatient attendances, community contacts or domiciliary visits.

(Statistics based on audited figures for 2020/21)

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