About Us

In July 2022 we were formally notified by the Charity Commission that we are now a fully registered charity. Our charity registration number is 1199840. This is a huge boost for Heartlink, our activities, our plans and our finances. Becoming a registered charity gives us official status and credibility in the wider community, particularly with organisations like our Hospital Health Trust and the Council, who we deal with regularly. It will allow us to bid for funding streams that have previously been closed to us.

It is a historic step forward for Heartlink, which was originally set-up by Professor Kooner and local Heart Patients in 1994 at Ealing Hospital and has helped thousands of heart patients and their families over the years.

Registration as a charity follows a decision made by the Heartlink Committee last year, with much hard work on drafting, agreeing, and implementing required policies and procedures, needed to ensure we operate on a safe and professional basis.

Heartlink holds an Annual General Meeting at which the members elect the Committee to run Heartlink for the next year.

As part of the process of Charity Registration, we formally agreed and registered our objects as follows:

To relieve sickness and to preserve and protect health among people suffering from heart disease in the Borough of Ealing and surrounding area, in particular by:

a) providing regular social and recreational activities and meetings for those suffering with heart disease in order to help relieve anxiety, reduce isolation and promote healthy lifestyles by interacting with others who share similar experiences and have an understanding of their needs;
 

b) working with the wider community to promote heart health and raise awareness of heart disease, its causes, treatments, implications and help that is available;
 

c) supporting patient care at the Cardiology Department at Ealing Hospital by providing items and other forms of comfort and support not required to be provided by any statutory authority.

Our great thanks to Ealing Hospital Cardiologists Professor Kooner, Professor Rosen, Dr Sethi,Dr Harmandeep Singh and Gary La Touché (4 South Cheseman Ward – Ward Manager & Acute Cardiac Specialist Nurse), who have shown their faith and support in us by becoming Trustees.

In 1994 the new Cardiology Department at Ealing Hospital, under Professor Kooner collaborated with the British Heart Foundation to set up the first cardiac rehabilitation programme In the area. Its purpose was to give recovering heart patients a staged exercise recovery programme to help them return to a full life.

With support from Professor Kooner a number of the patients involved in the programme and their families set up a heart support group to be known as Heartlink, and based at Ealing Hospital.

Our group developed from there, affiliating to the British Heart Foundation and establishing it’s own constitution and committee. One of our key activities from the outset was to visit patients in the heart ward at Ealing Hospital and offer them support, advice and encouragement. The group also organised regular meetings with cardiologists and others and a range of social activity.

Over a period we became a well-established and properly functioning group with a wide membership. We engaged with local people, welcoming members from all the various local communities and established strong links with them. As well as personal support, meetings and social activity we encouraged exercise and keep fit, with weekly walks and providing support to the local cardiac rehab. programme. 

We celebrated our 21st Anniversary in 2015 and our 25th Anniversary in 2019 with major events attended by local community representatives including elected representatives.In the year 2018/9 we were fortunate to be adopted as one of his chosen Charities by the Mayor of Ealing, the late Councillor Tejinder Dhami.

During the period of the covid pandemic our activities were very much curtailed, but we managed to keep in touch and support members and organised online meetings and local ( distanced ) trips and walks. 

Throughout our existence Professor Kooner has remained as President, and we have got great support from a number of other Ealing Cardiologists and nursing staff. In 2021 Heartlink took the decision to attempt to become a registered charity in its own right, and after much work this was achieved in summer 2022.