About Us

The idea of a Heart and Lung Fund at the Pilgrim Hospital appeared in 1986. Then, as now, there was already a Boston branch of the National Charities of the British Heart Foundation and British Lung Foundation. These two charities, however, predominantly and quite rightly collect funds to support research projects into diseases of the heart and lungs. A percentage of funds collected for these charities can be used to fund equipment at local hospitals but the actual type of equipment permissible via the same is dictated by the constitution of the said charity. The Heart and Lung Fund is a local charity and all monies donated to it are used to provide equipment to investigate, and support services to treat patients suffering from heart and lung disease. Local people including doctors, technicians and other health service workers in the field of heart and lung medicine in South Lincolnshire decide how the money should be used to help these patients. The charity is therefore, in the best position to determine what equipment and service is appropriate to fulfil local needs.

Why is it necessary?

The last few decades has seen a fluctuating economy in this country. This has resulted in funding for the Health Service being one of the lowest in Europe. We are hopeful that with the appearance of the National Service Framework (NSF) for Heart Disease, that this situation will change dramatically in the years ahead. However, there inevitably, will be a shortfall. In this situation we can either sit back and leave things as they are with the result that local people may still have to travel vast distances to get certain tests performed on them or we can attempt to rectify it by obtaining public support and providing the necessary equipment through charitable means for our local Hospital. In addition to the foregoing, the public at large, despite much information now pushed through the media, still appear to be unaware of the magnitude of illness and death caused by diseases of both the heart and lungs. It follows from this that there is correspondingly lack of public funding for charities supporting heart and lung disease. The chart demonstrates quite clearly the discrepancy between death and disability due to diseases of these two major organ systems and the amount of funds available both from the public sector and from charities to support them.