Event promoting support services in Ashington and Bedlington areas to be held at Hirst Welfare Centre

Wansbeck Community Links, which offers social prescribing at Bedlingtonshire, Guidepost, Seaton Park and The Gables medical groups, is running the event to highlight more than 40 support services that are accessible in the area.

It will be held at Hirst Welfare Centre from 10am to 4pm on Tuesday, March 21.

Team leader Jane McGee said: “There is going to be lots on offer. It is breaking down the barriers a little bit.

“There are a lot of very small community groups that cannot afford to promote themselves.

“Often people just do not know that we have got some amazing services just on our doorstep.”

Previously Wansbeck Community Links ran the ‘Canny Little Christmas’ appeal, collecting cards and gifts to be delivered to isolated elderly people.

Three months on, gift recipients are invited to this event to check in with how they are doing.

Jane said: “Hopefully it makes them feel important. I just thought it was nice to carry that through and we will continue to do that every couple of months with this particular group of very special patients.”

The event is open to everyone, regardless of age or whether you are a patient at one of the GP surgeries.

Jane said: “We are branching into support for younger people and families as well because there is a high level of child poverty here in Hirst.

“I hope everyone who walks through the door will be able to go away with some valuable information that they did not know before about a service that could help them.

Social prescription services, which provide non-medical support and signposting to other services for patients, are needed more than ever before as a result of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

Jane added: “Covid had a huge impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing. The impact of the financial crisis that we are in is huge. People are really struggling with mental health.

“We have mental health practitioners in the surgeries but they only have a 20-minute time slot to talk to someone, so social prescribing is becoming more and more important because we have got the flexibility.”