The Group provides support and representation for the patients and carers of the Heart and Lung Centre at Wolverhampton.

This is achieved through its members’ role as the Patients’ Friends and through its fundraising activities. It is a Registered Charity (No. 701667) which was formed by ex-patients of the Coronary Care Unit of New Cross Hospital in 1985. Currently the Group has over 500 enrolled members and has an excellent reputation both within the Hospital and in the Community as a whole. The good work of the Committee and its members in supporting patients and their carers has been much appreciated by the many thousands of people that the Group has supported since its inception especially in its key role as “Patients’ Friend”. The services provided by the Group were recognized nationally in the year 2000 by the presentation of an MBE to its chairman by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The President received an OBE in 2002 and in 2008 the Group received The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service 2008.

The following Bombay Hospital Motto, formulated by Mahatma Gandhi, applies equally to us and should always define our purpose:

A patient is the most important person in our Hospital. He is not an interruption to our work.
He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our Hospital. He is part of it.
We are not doing him a favour by serving him.
He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.

Our Motto is “Nothing about us without us”, which indicates that we intend to represent
our patients and carers wherever there is a need to do so.