Funding Pulled For Glasgow Hospital Radio Station
norderney
Posts: 772 Forum Member
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Just read the following on Radio Today. Are hospital radio stations still needed or not? After all you can listen to a variety of different radio stations and your own music on iPod?
Southern Sound, a hospital radio station in Glasgow, is fighting for survival after being told there is no room for it at the hospital.
The station has been based at the Southern General for 20 years (and on-air for 40) but has to move before the hospital is demolished and a new £842 million hospital opens. The local NHS Board says they are no longer willing to finance the service, saying there’s no need for hospital radio in the new hospital which has individual patient entertainment.
Volunteers are looking to raise £30,000 to move the studios and rent a new base.
A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde told the Evening Times: “When the new South Glasgow Hospital opens later this year, every single en-suite room will have an individual patient entertainment system with dedicated free access to Freeview channels and digital radio.
“The length of time a patient stays in hospital is reducing and most bring their own personal phones, iPads and iPods to listen to their own choices of music.
“Our view therefore is that the historical visit by a volunteer for personal requests is less viable given these changes and the array of TV and radio choices which will be offered by our new entertainment systems.
“Until now NHSGGC has provided Southern Sound Radio with free accommodation, heating, lighting, power and maintenance costs. However, in November our board agreed that in light of these factors it was not appropriate to spend further public monies on funding the relocation and continued running costs for Southern Sound off site.”
“We are hugely appreciative of the service that Southern Sound has delivered over the years and a special reception is planned to recognise this.”
Southern Sound, a hospital radio station in Glasgow, is fighting for survival after being told there is no room for it at the hospital.
The station has been based at the Southern General for 20 years (and on-air for 40) but has to move before the hospital is demolished and a new £842 million hospital opens. The local NHS Board says they are no longer willing to finance the service, saying there’s no need for hospital radio in the new hospital which has individual patient entertainment.
Volunteers are looking to raise £30,000 to move the studios and rent a new base.
A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde told the Evening Times: “When the new South Glasgow Hospital opens later this year, every single en-suite room will have an individual patient entertainment system with dedicated free access to Freeview channels and digital radio.
“The length of time a patient stays in hospital is reducing and most bring their own personal phones, iPads and iPods to listen to their own choices of music.
“Our view therefore is that the historical visit by a volunteer for personal requests is less viable given these changes and the array of TV and radio choices which will be offered by our new entertainment systems.
“Until now NHSGGC has provided Southern Sound Radio with free accommodation, heating, lighting, power and maintenance costs. However, in November our board agreed that in light of these factors it was not appropriate to spend further public monies on funding the relocation and continued running costs for Southern Sound off site.”
“We are hugely appreciative of the service that Southern Sound has delivered over the years and a special reception is planned to recognise this.”
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Comments
I spent my teen years in Hospital Radio. I loved it, but as for most involved in it, it was an ego trip and nothing more. Hardly anyone listened to it anyhow, With time, it's validity has waned even more, as recognised by this NHS trust.
I suspect 100% of the sense of loss will be to those actually "working" for it and zero amongst patients and staff.
It's magic when it works.
At a time we're so skint we can't even afford the basics of healthcare, I'd say it comes nowhere on the list of priorities. Other than maybe requests, I'd say the average listenship to general programmes on the average HBO is approximately zero.
There were no Walkmans, iPods, mobile phone and so on then. Hospital radio provided a good service for the patients, who for a couple of hours of request show, forgot they were ill.
With all the electronics these days, there is far less of a need.
For the folks at this station, they are finding the same as other HR stations who are being pushed out.
The solution, is to move on and join or start a community radio station. There is no reason why a community station can't still be "hospital radio" and do the request shows as part of their output.
If this station is talking about raising £30,000 to take on premises, rent, council tax, their own electric and so on, then that is way m ore than most community stations have.
With the level of commitment and experise already in hospital radio, they all need to look forward and not backward, convert to community stations and retains their few hours of hospital requests a week.
Much as it pains me to say it, hospital radio is past its sell by date and neds to reinvent itself.
Of course, there's a benefit to the radio industry too, and it'd be great to see Bauer or Global make some donations to these organisations (not particularly likely I suspect...)
Agree 100%. I wonder how many requests are actually heard by the requester? In my experience, the patient is discharged before they get round to playing!! How many of today's presenters come via HR? Being a second or third rate celebrity seems to be the essential criteria.
I understand the argument for Ipods and smart phones, you could use that argument for the entire radio industry, I've seen very little use of these in the wards, what happens to the older generation who maybe don't have these devices, do they get forgotten about, The NHS state it’s a state of the art entertainment system, but they gloss over the fact you’ll have to pay for TV . The Wifi also costs.
I've always had the view if you just park in the studio your doing it wrong, I make sure the wards get visits multiple times a week, we do have some people who excel in this respect. Its important for us to remember, patients are the sole reason why we exist.
Granted our audience isn't huge personally speaking though its not a number chasing game, we're not aiming to be Heart or Smooth, to use perhaps a slightly crude argument if just one person benefits from what we do that day we're happy. I've always viewed Hospital Radio done properly as another befriending service, or use the radio argument an ultra local radio station, on a very personnel level.
To answer the requests point, we usually go round a couple of hours before they air.
The new hospital is to be mostly if not exclusively single rooms, the current situation is four maybe six to a room, my own personal thoughts here, The single room configuration is going to isolate patients, the single room takes away the camaraderie that gets built up in shared rooms, that makes any role we have more important.
I've been in hospital multiple times myself I've seen it from both sides, its very depressing and quite upsetting in some ways, in some hospitals I saw no one apart from visitors once a day, and to be stabled with a needle by the odd nurse now and again.
The funding challenge is a significant one of course it is, The NHS needs the space we're in for a car park and they don't have the cash to help us, even I cant argue for the diversion of funds from patient care to help us out, that would just be silly.
We have a team that care passionately about what we do day in day out, HR has it critics but it is understood sometimes what it should be really be about
Radio Wey also in Surrey has it's own hut, done some FM RSLs to raise it's community profile, has a large sign at the hospital entrance and seems safe, but was refused an FM licence.
some stations have done this, but for others the next chance to get an FM licence maybe years away.
I notice there is a Hospital radio association meeting soon with over 200 hospital stations and issues like this need discussion.
Hospital radio would have been essential when there was little other entertainment in open wards with those little plastic tube headphones plugged into the hole in the wall, but with wifi, tablets and freeview available to all patents, I don't see the justification for the NHS to fund and accommodate the station out of tax payers money.
I was also involved in the management of my local hospital station for many years. Around three years ago a new unit was built in the hospital whose wards were never equipped with the Hospedia/Patientline bedside entertainment system. Other wards were similarly "upgraded" and simply received new Freeview TVs purchased by the hospital - it was obviously the NHS trust's long-term aim to eventually make the paid-for entertainment service redundant and offer a free service to all patients. All very laudable, except they failed to realise that this would ultimately consign the hospital station to obscurity.
A solution was sought by adopting the combined community/hospital radio station model used by stations such as Apple FM (Taunton) and CHBN (Truro) and advocated by some posters here and on the Radio Today pages. Ultimately the station was awarded a licence by Ofcom but, as seems to happen all too often, it became the victim of some bitter internal politics which resulted in the resignation of many of the station personnel (myself included) last year and - sad to report - the station was closed on the orders of the NHS Trust last August. It has still not re-opened.
In the light of what is happening in Glasgow and elsewhere, will this be the thin end of the wedge that will encourage other NHS Trusts to look at how their hospital stations are operating and seek to close them down on similar grounds? I would argue that the cost to the NHS of some basic accommodation, electricity and telephones for a typical HR set-up is negligible. Most stations fund all their own capital equipment purchases, music, licensing etc. anyway and the cost should be outweighed by the benefits in befriending patients who might be lonely, vulnerable, and maybe even scared!
This will only work if it's done properly though. Sadly, many hospital stations are full of wannabe DJs who have no interest in visiting patients. With an ever-changing audience of patients there isn't much chance of building up a loyal listenership, unless your hospital station is also online or on FM and people can be encouraged to stay tuned after they've left hospital. Getting round the wards and promoting the station is therefore vital, and those stations who do it right have the listening figures to prove it - and I've seen the stats!
Really? How do they measure for the stats?
I can honestly say, through my teenage years in my hometown, then at 2 stations in London, and another in Essex, and countless hours on wards, I don't think I ever came across a patient spontaneously listing to hospital radio. A few would listen to requests, but nothing else. The stations I worked for were all very different, from the large membership, over-democratic, shambolic station I started at, to the dictatorial. uber-slick modeled-on-commercial-radio (on AM) in London. The constants amongst them were internal politics, cliques, endless discussion about jingle packages, playing of "too much pop" and a complete and total absence of anyone actually listening!
In our location, BBC1 and ITV were usually the most watched channels as you might expect, but amongst the radio stations on offer we could usually run our popular local commercial station a close second, even beating them on occasions.
That's nothing like the hospital radio station i worked on, it was very patient focussed - and it played a much wider variety of music than station i've worked on since, and plenty of listener participation, they are not all the same.
Ok, that is out of my experience. Fair do's. It could also mean one person listening to their request, taking out the headphones, nodding off and leaving it tuned in for the next 7 days
The AM station I worked for in London explored the possibility of buying a large batch of transistors made to receive 999M only, which could have been handed out around the hospital. I thought it was a great idea, but it never got off the ground owing the volume and costs required to produce.
It's not really the starting point anymore it's just one of many starting points. Things have moved on.
Agreed, it isn't what it once was when the radio industry was bursting with local presenters and local stations with presenters all day, evening and weekend. These days there are other ways, internet radio, Youtube, Twitch, student radio, media apprenticeships, more college and university media studies courses, internships and other ways to get a foot into the media.
The reference to patient entertainment systems is also an interesting one and some trusts have used this as an excuse for replacing hospital radio. However, they are also commercial companies and some have removed their equipment or contracts with trusts have been terminated. Causing stations to also have no way of being heard!
Someone has posted about audience figures - to the best of my knowledge only Hospedia offer this service. Premier Bedside defiantly don't provide such information for any of their services.
It would be good to know what relationship those former HBA's who have become community radio stations have with their trusts and whether they now charged for accommodation, etc.
Only my views....
2 Adult stations, 1 Kids
Both adult stations began transmission on 28th November
Radio and TV all free
Source I'm Southern Sounds Tech director
Entirely self funding,
We've got used to f... and s... and other expressions but those don't cost money. Doing 'service" is just not on as there is no monetary gain to be made.
Accountants have ruined the world.
I don't think, unless you've experienced it done well, you can appreciate what value Hospital Radio has to certain audiences. Granted, not everyone, but that's like saying Smooth Radio only appeals to a small cross section of an audience, so it's not viable.
However, I think the technology has possibly overrun the service now and a lot of these stations can't find financial viability to keep going. A few stations on their way out have joined with their local community stations who have found space on the schedule for a show which focuses on health and hospital requests in a similar way. Then, the hospital station itself just rebroadcasts the community station, possibly to the bedside entertainment systems, which results in the station still being in existence and the community station broadening its audience.
So a patient is admitted to hospital. That patient will initially at least be recovering with no way of accessing entertainment apart from what the hospital provides.
The real concerns of a patient and their relatives, neighbours or friends is clothing, bathroom supplies such as towels and flannels, non-medical supplies such as face wipes and Lucozade. Bringing portable electronic equipment into the hospital, such as iPods, radios and the like is surely well down the list of necessary items ?
Therefore an entertainment system on the wall behind them surely has an essential place. Of course the best solution is going to be a service supplied from inside the hospital, that is going to be the aspect that you've described above of a mixture of request playing and caring work ? Perhaps you've answered your own question, that traditional hospital radio is dead, but it HAS to be replaced by "socially caring" work that includes providing entertainment INCLUDING the playing of requests ?
It's now probably much longer to take all the requests from the wards back to the studio.
In all honestly its fair to say its much harder work, we've been very lucky with grant funding and our own fundraising efforts. The fundraising alone is a very intensive task
Requests are as you suggest are also trickery to do, Each Adult station does a different side every day on a rota