Our History

Heart Care has been helping the communities of Walsall and Sutton Coldfield for over 30 years and are experts in cardiac rehabilitation.  We started with an exercise bike in Walsall college and over the years we have helped thousands of people to recover from heart and lung disease.

    1980

The idea for Heart Care came from Dr Ron McKecknie a local GP who had been looking at the fitness of athletes with an Exercise Physiologist.  He compared the results with middle aged and this lead to researching the advantages of exercise for patients with cardio-vascular disease.

A two year pilot scheme was decided to establish a cardiac rehabilitation facility for patients in Walsall and Sutton Coldfield at Walsall College.

1981

The Walsall Cardiac Rehabilitation Trust was established “ To rehabilitate patients with cardio-vascular disease by attempting to modify the factors which prevent them from returning to a full working and social life ”.  It was later decided to use the name Heart Care for the organisation.

1982

A programme began at Walsall College, operating six hours a week following a number of fundraising events and donations from local Rotary Clubs.  The official opening was in 1982 by Kenneth Clarke Minster for Health at that time. 

1983/1984

Ed Doolan Broadcast his live radio show from Heart Care on two occasions.

1987

“ Heart Beat Sutton ” was established based at Wyndley Leisure Centre.  This was an after care only unit for patients referred from either Good Hope Hospital or Walsall Heart Care’s Rehabilitation Programmes.

1989

We moved Heart Care from Walsall College to our own premises in Hollyhedge Lane.  Our official opening was by Bruce George MP.  In this year we also decided to run an after care programme as a commitment to our patients for their on-going care.

1996

We changed the name from 'Heart Beat Sutton' to 'Heart Care Streetly' and moved to Streetly Community Centre where it is still located today After Care Streetly.

2001

So that we could grow our charity and provide a better service to more people we moved from Hollyhedge Lane to bigger premises in Portland Street in Walsall.  The official opening was by Professor Brian Pentecost.

 

2008

Pulmonary Rehabilitation

After we established a cardiac rehabilitation programme and moved into our new premises it was only a matter of time before we looked at maximising the use of our facilities and expertise to provide programmes for other groups of patients.

After an initial trial we were awarded a contract by the Walsall CCG to provide a Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Rehabilitation - (COPD) programme. We now receive approximately 200 referrals per annum.

 

Weight Management

We were also awarded a contract with Walsall Primary Care Trust to provide a weight management programme.  This was initially for our own patients and then we started receive referrals from all GP Practices.  The contract then moved to Walsall Council Public Health but unfortunately funding ceased in 2017.  However, we are still able to provide a weight management programme to our own patients through various Trust donations and continuous fundraising.

2013

Following a successful trial of an in-house counselling service the Trustees agreed that this would form part of our overall care package to patients from 2013.  Our Counselling service is run by a qualified counsellor and is for patients who may be suffering from anxiety or depression following their illness.

2015

We wanted to provide a different form of exercise to suit patients who required something different to our structured programmes and also for those suffering from long term conditions such as cancer, stroke & diabetes.  Included in this is our Tai Chi programme which is a low impact moderate-intensity exercise and is suitable for all our patients.  We chose certain members of our rehab team who undertook training to enable them to teach 'Tai Chi for Rehabilitation'. 

Three classes are held every week by our qualified instructors at Tai-Chi Walsall and Tai-Chi Streetly