BDO NI support NI Chest, Heart & Stroke Family Support Service

Local business advisory firm, BDO Northern Ireland has marked the quarter way point of their partnership with local charity NI Chest, Heart and Stroke with a £13K fundraising effort. BDO NI announced their two-year partnership in December 2021, with the charity supporting more than 335,000 people living in Northern Ireland with a chest, heart, or stroke condition.

A significant amount of the money raised by BDO NI over the lifetime of the partnership will go towards sustaining the charity’s vital family support service, which offers practical and emotional help and guidance to families navigating life with a heart, stoke or chest condition.

For most of the last two years the charity has been forced to facilitate this service through online or virtual means due to the pandemic. Recently, face to face and group sessions have returned which has allowed the charity’s family support coordinators to meet with families and provide tailored, personal advice and guidance.

Maybeth Shaw, Partner at BDO Northern Ireland, said: “The support services provided by NI Chest, Heart & Stroke are wide ranging for patients and their families across NI. This includes vital research into better treatments, care, and prevention of these conditions. Many of these services rely heavily on public donations and support.

“One of the key challenges for the charity throughout the pandemic was delivering their family support services virtually. We have heard firsthand how important this service is, how much it helps families, not just with practical and logistical advice but emotional support and it is great to see these services return to a more normal face-to-face setting”.

BDO Northern Ireland

The BDO NI team took part in a range of fundraising efforts including a five a side football tournament with competitors from across the accountancy sector competing, and participation at this year’s Belfast Marathon.

Regina Cox, Partnerships Manager for NI Chest Heart and Stroke added, “The team at BDO NI have hit the ground running with their fundraising efforts and it is great to see some more conventional fundraising activities return.

“Almost 4 in 10 of all adult deaths in NI are caused by chest, heart, or stroke conditions and 335,171 people in Northern Ireland are currently living with chest, heart and stroke conditions. This is approximately 17% of the population and an overall increase of 1.9% on the previous year.

“Almost 90% of our services and research are funded by public donations and without partnerships like this one with BDO NI we wouldn’t be able to deliver our support services to both patients and their support network”.

BDO Northern Ireland is an award-winning accountancy practice that employs more than 150 people in Northern Ireland. More information on the work of NI Chest, Heart & Stroke can be found at https://nichs.org.uk/