The Solihull Heart Support Group was established in January 1995 by our Chairman Mike Lines and his wife Tricia.

It became affiliated to the British Heart Foundation in March 1995.

The Group meets once a month, invite a guest speaker, and we discuss problems with each other.

The Group is run by former heart patients for heart patients & former heart patients and their partner/carers.

It is intended for people living in the Solihull and neighbouring areas of the West Midlands, UK.

We can sympathise and empathise with your fears, both for the patient and your partner or carer.

		To maintain contact with other people with heart problems and their relatives and offer mutual support.
		To offer appropriate support to patient and partner particularly when people are discharged from hospital.
		To keep abreast with current thinking and practice in aftercare.
		To provide information on local exercise & leisure facilities and local rehabilitation programmes.
		To provide an environment for supervised exercise sessions when circumstances permit.
		To interact with other heart support groups in the area.
		To make contact with other local voluntary groups.
		To support the British Heart Foundation when possible.
		To maintain a close liaison with the rehabilitation classes at Solihull Hospital.

Well, we are always there to talk about any of your concerns regarding heart problems although we obviously cannot answer any medical questions - only your medical practitioner can do this, or you can talk to a nurse adviser at the BHF Head Office in London.

We can however talk about our experiences following Angina, Heart Attacks, Angioplasty or Heart Surgery as we have many members who 'have been there' ( i.e. experienced one or more of these).

We also provide support to your Partner/Carer, which is a very important role. Indeed membership of the Group is effectively a 'join membership' - the patient and the partner/carer. We have many partner/carers who can share their exepriences to answer many of the queries that carers have.

We give regular talks about the Group's work to patients attending rehabilitation sessions at Solihull Hospital and to other charitable groups and provide inforamtion stands at health & lifestyle events in the area.

The Group regularly advertises its meetings in the local Press. We also have a Public Relations Officer who maintains contact with the local media and some of our activities have been featured in the local Press and on local Radio and TV. We also responded to a call from the BBC who produced an excellent two-part documentary called "Heart" which was shown on prime time BBC1, and one of our members was featured in that programme.

	During National events like "BHF Heart Week", we usually participate by providing a display in Mell Square, Solihull.
		This is usually accompanied by a cookery demonstration of low fat recipes or an example of our exercise activities and offering helpful hints on diet. A low fat diet doesn't necessarily mean a boring diet!

Our routine method of advertising the Group is by talks at Solihull Hospital, or other venues that we might be invited to and also by our literature that is kept in local GP surgeries, hospitals and pharmacies.

Any help with publicity is greatly appreciated, and members come forward completely voluntarily to offer assistance where they feel they can. It helps to share our experiences and we are always learning about heart problems.

Our quarterly newsletter "Heart Line News" is an excellent means of keeping in touch with members who may possibly miss one or more of our monthly meetings. This gives details of forthcoming meetings & events, BHF events, news items, reports on past meetings for members who could not attend, news summaries, announcements & other notices and healthy eating recipes.