‘Help Us to Help You – look after your own health’
This area of our website contains advice to help keep you and your family healthy and places to find out more information. 
The NHS faces a number of big challenges with a growing population and increasing costs. The ‘Help Us to Help You’ brochure aims to raise awareness of how we can help people to help themselves by supporting them to take greater control of their health and wellbeing.
Self-Care
Self-care means looking after yourself in a healthy way, whether it’s eating healthily, avoiding health hazards such as smoking or drinking too much, taking medicine when you have a cold, or doing some exercise to stay well both physically and mentally. Keeping yourself fit and healthy can help you boost your immunity to illnesses like colds, flu and infections. Making big lifestyle changes like quitting smoking or losing weight can also decrease your chances of getting a serious illness like cancer or heart disease.
The best way to self-care is to be prepared.
Use NHS Services Responsibly
The NHS belongs to you, use it responsibly. Many people don't use NHS Services wisely or appropriately. Think about the best way to get the appropriate care for your situation. For example, when you have a simple complaint such as a cough or cold, rather than turn up at Accident and Emergency (A&E), it would be a lot easier and quicker for you to treat the condition yourself or visit your pharmacist for advice. There are a range of local NHS services to choose from. You don't always have to go to A&E.
Help and Support DVD
Healthlink
A free and reliable resource where you can find information and support for a range of health issues from seeing and hearing people’s real life experiences. People have shared their experiences on film to help you understand what it’s really like to have a health condition. For more information visit healthtalk.org
Your Health Matters
Your Health Matters is a project for adults with learning disabilities which was launched in Leeds in April 2012. They work together with the NHS to make information about health available in Easy Read.