Friday 13 November 2009

Making a difference in Cookstown,
Northern Ireland

We've recently launched a huge £9 million programme called Hearty Lives, and we're using the money to help people in isolated or deprived areas to look after their hearts.

One of the first places on our long list was Cookstown in County Tyrone, NI. This lovely picturesque town nonetheless suffers from the third highest premature death rate from heart disease in Northern Ireland, so we're setting up an innovative £200,000 heart health programme for them.

We'll be concentrating first on the parts of Cookstown where people are most likely to die early from heart disease. We've got a nurse educator on board, who's going to visit community groups and workplaces, like local meat factory Vion, to give free advice and support.

We're also going to train up local people with emergency life saving skills, and helping heart patients get access to cardiac rehabilitation, which can dramatically improve quality of life!

Hearty Lives is already doing life-saving work in Hastings, Dundee and Newham, and we're all set to help bring help to even more places in real need of better heart health. Keep an eye out next week, when we'll be announcing our next project!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it possible to apply for funding for this?

Anonymous said...

Great blog post!

Christmas Gifts said...

I didn't realise that the statistics on heart research was so good that you could pinpoint such small areas with such a high incidence of heart disease.

Great initiative. As someone with heart problems, (albeit I live in a a major town, which is handy as I can buy things from the local BHF shop, especially now that Christmas is coming) I can appreciate how useful this help would be to people in isolated areas.

I'm glad that the money I donate directly and indirectly is being put to such good use.