Each summer the parish council host a village party for the parishioners. This is provided free of charge with a bbq and cakes/hot drinks which are also free, only asking guests to contribute donations. After expenses have been deducted the remainder is then donated to a charity and this year Hearts & Souls was nominated by parish councillor Sally Withey who had recently benefited from the cardiac rehab exercise classes, but also knew of several parishioners who have had cardiac problems – sadly not all of them have had a happy outcome – so felt it  was a worthy cause to donate to.

Donations like this are vitally important to the charity in order to raise funds. This, and any other donations received by Hearts & Souls, will go directly to support the cardiac rehab team to improve the outcome for recovering cardiac patients in Buckinghamshire.

Chairman’s Report:

We started last year with a bare minimum to manage the charity but during the year welcomed both Lynn McMeekin and Lisa D’Uva as trustees on the executive committee giving us a more balanced workforce. Together with Kaitlyn Summerfield coming on board to help this has enabled us to increase our operation to include community events as we continue to try and improve awareness of the charity within the local community.

The ability to showcase ourselves at local events not just raises awareness but also provides another low income stream through donations; it has also allowed us to make new contacts and network with other local groups which again, help improve our profile within the community.

For these events we are working with a small dedicated team, help, even on a casual basis would always be welcomed and if you are willing to be added to a volunteer list please let me know.

As part of a relaunch of the charity, in the last year we redesigned our logo and branding as well as improving our social media presence and I would like to thank Kaitlyn for her help in this area.

Personally I don’t like to see donations given in good faith to support the rehab team spent on what I see as vanity projects. We required a gazebo for the outdoor events and this presented the opportunity to use our new branding to stand out. A grant from ‘Red Kite Community Housing‘ helped enable the purchase which now greatly enhances our presence at outdoor events, and I thank Red Kite for their kind support.

I now feel the charity has been rejuvenated at a time where we are seeing a more regular call on our funds from the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust rehabilitation unit, including the purchase of equipment, funding towards staff training and also help with staff cover when needed to ensure the best possible service to recovering cardiac patients.

We are currently looking to develop our forward planning, forecasting the likely requests from the rehab team against how best to meet that expenditure through either donations, funding-raising or grants or a combination of these means.

Over the past year we have remained financially healthy mainly due to a maintaining good reserve through a steady income from donations, this has enabled us to progress a transitional year with some confidence. However, we also remain grateful to some substantial fund raising efforts on our behalf particularly from Gourmet Lodge, Penn Pond Waders, Caitlin Mayo and the Chiltern Ladies Afternoon Singers which has helped us to preserve a good bank balance.

As always, we also remain indebted to our many individual sponsors and regular donors for their generous contributions, without who over the last few years Hearts & Souls could not have continued to fund the cardiac rehabilitation in South Bucks as we have, and we thank you for your loyal support.

Peter Jemmett (Hearts & Souls Chair)

I recently received this feedback to my blog – “Hi Peter, so inspiring, my journey has been very similar to your own. I suffered a major heart attack in January 2023 and, following cardiac rehabilitation, began gradually rebuilding my health, fitness and confidence”

It occurred to me that we all probably have very similar stories we could share that might help and inspire others at an uncertain time in their lifes, and this could possibly make a regular feature on the web site.

Are there any patients who have been through the rehab programme who would like to share their own story on this web site? This can be done anonymously, please send an email to: info@heartsandsouls.co.uk

Link to my blog – https://peterjemmett.blogspot.com/

Peter (Hearts & Souls chair)

Edit (09/10/26): A new page has now been set-up to share patients own cardiac experiences and we are please to include our first story – click here

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To join, click the image below

The Green Status Certification is a national quality mark awarded to cardiac rehabilitation programmes that successfully meet all seven key performance indicators set by the National Certification Programme for Cardiac Rehabilitation.

What is Green Status?

• Full Certification: Achieved by meeting all 7 minimum standards and key performance indicators.
• Other Tiers: Programmes are categorized as Amber (meeting 4–6 standards), Red (meeting 1–3 standards), or Fail (meeting 0 or failing to submit data).
• Validation: Teams must complete and submit annual National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation surveys and data to validate their status.

Key Performance Areas: to attain Green Status, cardiac rehabilitation services must hit targets across seven specific operational domains:

• Adequate and appropriate multidisciplinary team staffing profiles.
• Reaching the correct target patient groups.
• Maintaining appropriate waiting times for access.
• Delivering proper programme duration.
• Ensuring the thorough completion of initial and final patient assessments.
• Consistent data submission to the national audit database.

Cardiac Rehab team lead nurse Lisa said in response to receiving this honour “We are all super proud of this achievement (only 60% of programmes achieve green status) and it is a reflection of everyone’s hard work and commitment and I think having Hearts & Souls support is also fundamental to this. So thank you for your ongoing support”.

I am writing to give notice of the 2026 AGM for Hearts & Souls which is to be held at 10:00hrs on Thursday 1st October 2026. We will meet at Ward 4A, Wycombe Hospital, Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, HP11 2TT

Hearts & Souls rounded off a very busy summer of reaching out into the community by attending the Hazlemere Fete held on the Sir William Ramsay school site. We would like to thank everyone who came to our stall for chat to find out more about the charity or contributed to our fund raising effort on bank holiday Monday.

It is not every day to get to meet and have your photo taken with Elvis or get totally crowded out in a Hearts & Souls gazebo during the few sudden downpours throughout the day, with one gentleman even making a nice donation for the privilege!

It has been an absolute pleasure to again meet up with some former patients both new and old and swap our heart/rehab experiences and particularly meeting up with our patron Tony McHale who always shows a genuine passion for the charity and another former patient who has offered his professional skills to us and we look forward to working together.

However, there is one particular heart-warming story from one of our volunteers that has to be shared:

“The highlight of my day today was a lovely 73 year old lady who spoke to me who knew nothing about our charity but just wanted to thank us all for all of our hard work.

She goes out of her way to talk to charities at these types of events and listened to me explaining what we do. This wonderful lady then asked me if it was OK to give me a hug which of course I said yes, and then she told me that she had COPD and asthma. She gave a cash donation and another hug telling me yet again what a great job we were all doing!”

Despite the changeable weather I think I can safely say we all enjoyed the day immensely, especially Andy on the tombola (again).

A massive thank-you to Hazlemere fete for organising such a popular community event and our volunteers who made this all possible – we are looking forward to doing it all again!

For some general photos from around the fete – click here

On Bank Holiday Monday we will be out and about again this time at the Hazlemere Fete (see ‘events diary‘ for details), please do come up to us and say hello.

Hearts & Souls bring to a close our busy summer of events reaching out into the community when, for the second year running, we are pleased to be attending the highly enjoyable and successful Hazlemere Fete on Bank Holiday Monday, 31st August at Sir William Ramsay school field ….. a family fun day out for all that is free to enter!

Please stop by and say hello and find out how we help those recovering from recent cardiac events here in South Bucks.

[photo is not necessarily the actual bike to be purchased]

In addition, with the current heat wave in mind, the charity is also purchasing two additional 20” floor fans, this should help make the exercise sessions a little more comfortable during the hot weather.

These, together with some other small ancillary equipment, is a considerable commitment from the charity and only made possible through your generous donations, we thank you for your continued support.