Hearty Lives Cookstown Scoops BHF National Award for Partnership Working

A recent reception was hosted by Cookstown District Council in recognition of Hearty Lives Cookstown Learning Disability Heart Health programme winning the British Heart Foundation (BHF) National Award for Partnership Working. This programme was set up to address heart health inequalities for people with learning disabilities.

At the reception to recognise this national achievement, Nigel Stratton, Assistant Director of Learning Disability Services within the Northern Health and Social Care Trust commented,

“The Trust is delighted to be involved in such a successful model of partnership working which we hope can be developed in other Council areas across the Trust. We extend warm congratulations to the staff who led the project and also to all of those who took part with such dedication and enthusiasm. Winning such a prestigious national award is a wonderful recognition of their efforts and we are very proud of everyone involved.”

Cllr Tony Quinn, Chairman of Cookstown District Council also commented on the achievement,

“The Heart Health Learning Disability programme, is an excellent example of partnership working involving a multi-disciplinary approach. We are very pleased that this innovative programme was chosen as the overall winner in demonstrating effective Partnership Working at the BHF National Award Ceremony in Birmingham for 2012.

Speaking about why Hearty Lives Cookstown were awarded, Stephanie Leckey, Area Development Manager, BHF Northern Ireland said,

“Hearty Lives Cookstown has demonstrated an excellent model of practice for working in partnership to address the needs of adults with learning disabilities, who can be a hard to reach group. They successfully brought together the Learning Disability Team and Community Dietetics from the Northern Trust, Local Primary Care Practices, Leisure Services and Environmental Health from Cookstown District Council.

The achievements of this Hearty Lives programme have outweighed expectation and due to the success it is now going to be replicated in other areas in the Northern Trust.”

Additional information:

Hearty Lives Cookstown was established in 2009 as Cookstown was identified as having one of the highest rates of premature death from heart disease in Northern Ireland. This project aims to improve the Heart Health of the local community in Cookstown and has been developed in partnership with British Heart Foundation (BHF) Northern Ireland, Cookstown District Council, Northern Health and Social Care Trust (NHSCT) and the Public Health Agency (PHA).

For Further Information on Hearty Lives Cookstown please contact Florence Hand, Northern Trust on 028 256 35575 or Hearty Lives Cookstown on 028 867 62205.

28th January 2013