Lancashire based charity Heartbeat receives generous £8000 from anonyomous donor

The charity, Heartbeat based in Lancashire, works to reduce cardiovascular disease. They say it is the leading cause of death and disability in the world, claiming 17.9 million lives a year and many prematurely.

Established nearly 40 years ago in 1978, their purpose is to contribute to a reduction in the disease through the delivery of services aimed at existing heart patients and those identified as at risk of developing it. They have a dedicated centre within the stadium at Preston North End in addition to nine satellite sites throughout central Lancashire.

Heartbeat was blown away when an extremely kind donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, offered to purchase a new electrocardiogram stress test treadmill for its headquarters. The equipment cost almost £8,000 and is needed to assess the cardiac health of people attending their cardiac prevention and rehabilitation programmes.

Karen Entwistle, Heartbeat’s Corporate Fundraiser said “We are extremely grateful for this enormously generous donation. Every week, Heartbeat receives referrals from GP’s, hospitals or people self-referring.

Each person undergoes a specialised assessment at Heartbeat, and this takes the form of a treadmill test which allows our clinicians to see how well the heart is working and see if there is enough blood flow to the heart. The electrocardiogram stress test now considered the ‘gold standard’ is an objective tool for evaluating cardiopulmonary function and fitness, allowing our clinical team to determine what level of exercise is suitable for each person. It also helps them to assess symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath or palpitations to determine whether they are coming from the heart.

We currently support 960 people every week although the number of referrals is rising. The cost to run our programmes every year is just over £1M and it is funded entirely by fundraising and donations”.

The charity also said they wanted to give an ‘enormous thank you to the anonymous person who supported us in this way - we are extremely grateful for your wonderful kindness.’