History & Aims

The group was founded in 1990 by the late Anne Kaneen who at that time was working as a Senior Sister/Cardiac Rehabilitation Sister in the Coronary Care Unit at the Royal Bolton Hospital. She has said that “people who have suffered a heart attack or undergone cardiac surgery require specialist help, both in the hospital and the community setting Not only do they need to be restored to full activity, but they and their families require advice and support to promote well-being and to reduce the risk of recurrent attacks”. Following her retirement in 1990 due to ill health, Anne became Chairman of the Group. In this capacity she worked hard to publicise the support and activities of our charity and also represented the Group at other related forums in the Borough. For her tireless efforts, Anne was awarded the MBE by Her Majesty the Queen. Anne died on the 16 January 2015.

The Group is established to provide benefit for those people who have suffered from Heart and Cardio Vascular disease and to provide support for their families and friends.

To provide and assist in the provision of facilities for educational, recreation and other leisure time occupations in the interests of social welfare for sufferers who by reason of their disability have need of such facilities so that their conditions of life may thereby be improved.

The Group work closely with the Cardiac Care Unit at Royal Bolton Hospital and assist them with the purchase of items of equipment where possible to assist them to make life easier for themselves and the patients they are caring for. In recent years we have provided a dedicated wheelchair for use in the Cardiac unit, Heart Rate wristband monitors for use in exercise classes, Laptop Computer and Digital Projector for carrying out audio/visual presentations.

Each year, the Group endeavour to arrange a day trip out for members and their carers/partners. Recent trips have been to York with a cruise along the river, Llandudno with a tram trip to the summit of the Great Orme and Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire.

At Christmas time we have an evening buffet in the Friends Meeting House, the evening is a very relaxed social event, in addition to the buffet we have a raffle, a quiz which is organised by our Chairman David Houghton and a short talk by or President Dr Peter Scott and finally a light hearted session by our Patron Norman Prince who will amuse us with his own brand of humour.