A "Study of the Internal Hospital Broadcasting Services" for
the Dept of Health and Social Services was carried out in March of 1979.
The survey concentrated on the Ulster Hospital Radio and Radio Royal (RVH.).
The survey was carried out by a researcher from (I think) Jordanstown
Poly.. Here are a few extracts from my written response.
Unfortunately I
no longer have a copy of the original survey report. BW 2006 |
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| THE REPORT STATES "...... hospital
radio broadcasting....... is in a position to develop a true community
service." |
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MY RESPONSE IS ...Although this survey is an investigation into patients'
attitudes to hospital broadcasting, it is inevitable that the attitudes
of the volunteers who run the service are also mentioned. It is a pity
that this aspect was not investigated in a little more depth.
The 'community service' mentioned is taken to be one way and the report lays
little stress on the benefit derived by the volunteers. The Ulster Hospital Radio
(U.H.R.) can easily be operated by one person and has been designed to do so
(as per Radio Royal) but this method of operation is actively discouraged and
it is normal for four people to be involved in producing the programme whilst
others collect the requests.
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| Among our volunteers are - |
A fireman; a school principal; a civil engineer; a UTV announcer;
several BBC engineers; a retired bank manager; a receptionist; an ambulance
controller; housewives; secretaries etc. and in the lower age group there
are several students, the youngest being 15. One student passed his Duke
of Edinburgh Gold "Service" Award by working with us and incidentally
has remained with the team ever since. Another is half-way through her
'year' for the same award. Yet another has worked for his community service
award at Inst. by helping to catalogue the records. He too is still with
us and is one of our most fervent ward visitors,
Who the volunteers
were and their motivation for working at the Ulster Hospital was never
solicited by the researcher during the few hours she spent with us. However
most of paragraph three of this page of the report applies equally as
well to the Ulster Hospital Radio as to Radio Royal, i.e. these range
from an interest in the technology of broadcasting, to an interest in
talking to patients on the wards, as part of the efforts to solicit record
requests etc. Efforts are made to develop the interests of volunteers
in the patients, and individuals solely interested in the radio station
as a stepping stone to a broadcasting career are discouraged. |
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Broadcasts
The three programmes mentioned on Page 4 of the survey are all record requests
and interviews. The Sunday programme also includes a short talk given
each week by one of the hospital chaplains who give this in rotation. |
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The report does not mention the Childrens programmes. There are no
headphones in the kiddies wards as they used to meddle with them and so
were removed. We do a live broadcast about once a month. The Outside Broadcast
equipment is placed in one of the ward playrooms and all the young patients
gather there. The mobile youngsters make their own way but the bed-bound
are wheeled in their beds by the nursing staff and ourselves. This is a
most popular occasion and up to 40 Mums, Dads, patients and staff gather
for the event. The programme is of course also heard by the adult patients
in the hospital. The presenters are a husband and wife team who specialise
in childrens entertainment and are, incidentally, closely associated with
a local Gateway Club,
The architectural lay-out of the Ulster Hospital
makes it possible to occasionally turn a broadcast into some-thing visual
for the patients. There is a patio near our studio. which faces the main
block and in fine weather we take our Outside Broadcast equipment on
to it and broadcast from there. This enables many of the patients to
watch us working and indeed drop requests from their windows down to
us. This may seem a 'bit of a circus' but in practice, unlike T.V. sound
in the ward or a visiting choir, this in no way interferes with the very
ill patient or the patient who is not interested. |
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Patients requests, and feedback
THE REPORT COMMENTS ON ...."The considerable individuality
in collecting requests for specific programmes" |
MY RESPONSE to the above is as follows...
We have three
main programmes a week and three separate ways of gathering the requests
as follows:-
Sunday (Light Music)
A different six wards are selected each, week by rota and a patient in each of
these wards is nominated by the Ward Sister or Staff Nurse to distribute and
collect the request forms. The staff select individuals for a variety of reasons,
i.e. an ideal way to introduce a newly arrived patient to fellow 'residents;
helps the uncommunicative to communicate; gives the depressed patient a feeling
of being needed; a mild form of physiotherapy; gives the bored patient something
to occupy his/her mind. (This was the method at the time of writing this response,
however request collecting later was done by the Hospital Radio volunteers themselves
BW)
Tuesday (Gospel Music)
Approximately eight volunteers, working in pairs, visit practically every ward
on the evening of the broadcast to chat to the patients individually and gather
their requests. (Incidentally a big point is made during these visits and on "The
Air" that religion is not 'rammed down the throat7 of the captive audience.
Thursday (Pop Music)
Two volunteers visit three or four wards prior to the programme to gather requests
and chat to the patients. This programme is often shorter than the other two
as there appears to be a lesser demand for this style of music. |
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THE REPORT STATES... "There appears to be no
systematic monitoring of receptions of the programmes".
|
MY RESPONSE IS ... As stated our feedback is by (a) the type of requests
received and also the messages sometimes included with these requests and
(b) by talking to the patients during the collection of requests.
We do not use a questionnaire as this appears to be off-putting and unpalatable
to the patient. The response to the surveys own questionnaire would bear these
findings out. And incidentally the reasons given by the report for these poor
returns (See report Page 8)
Hospital Radio can afford to be labour intensive and the personal approach seems
to be the best method of monitoring reaction. These chats are an integral part
of hospital broadcasting, |
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Report's Questionnaire Results
Q.1/. "Do you ever listen to Ulster Hospital
Radio ?"
There seems to "be an implied value placed on the numbers of listeners*
This is not necessarily an important factor. The charm and value of hospital
radio is it's ability to deal with the individual. Quantity is not a criteria
in Ulster Hospital Radio.
Q.8/.
"Did you listen to Ulster Hospital Radio last night ?"
This questionnaire was completed on 15th August (See appendix D of the
report) - 22 per cent replied that they did. Please note .... there
was NO hospital radio on 14th August!
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| THE REPORT STATES "Perhaps the most surprising features is the relatively
low numbers of patients who actually make requests to the station." |
| We were asked by the report researcher to keep all request forms collected
during the sample week. This we did and there were over 90, which is a
usual average. We held on to these for about two months. They were never
asked for so they were eventually thrown away. |
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As the report is only a pilot one (I don't think
there ever was another survey- BW) may I suggest two more questions
be included in any future research. I include our own observations.
A. How many requests do you receive from visitors ?
For the Ulster Hospital Radio this is an interesting yet disappointing statistic.
In any one week we only get on average about 10 requests from visitors for patients.
With a notice in Reception; one on each door and one per bedside unit, most visitors
must be aware of the stations existence. On one or two occasions we have canvassed
visitors as they arrive at the hospital. All without exception have wanted us
to play a request for their patient.
B. Response of various categories of patients ?
From our experience we only receive about one per cent of our total requests
from Maternity,
Our best response is invariably from the Gynaecology wards. This rather negates
the overall impression that the short stay patient is the least interested, but
perhaps is explained by the nature of the 'illness" and the general happy
atmosphere found in these wards. |
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THE REPORT STATES on the Hospital Staff
Comments:- "Initial
pilot surveys revealed little interest or awareness of the hospital
radio." (by the staff)
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| As far as we know we run a unique service to counteract this apathy,
This we instigated about three years ago.
At the conclusion of every broadcast we return any request forms that mention
staff back to the originating ward with a note attached i.e. requests asking
'please play a record for the staff/cleaners/doctors etc. of ward x' |
| THE REPORT DECRIBES A VISIT TO ROEHAMPTON HOSPITAL
RADIO
"....,. explicit reference was made to the use of the hospital radio service
as a. training for subsequent employment in broadcasting." |
| For the first year or so of the Ulster's operation several BBC announcers
were involved. These have deliberately faded away to leave members of the
local community. Hospital Radio is essentially a community operation, |
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THE REPORT STATES ".......
there is little co-operation between the two stations (Royal and Ulster)
in terms
of sharing resources".
|
One wonders what resources are suggested? Obviously the greatest of these
are the record libraries. Hospital request programmes, by their instant
nature, require records immediately. There is, I understand, a Hospital
Radio in England (York) that does not have a record library but instead
holds a list of people willing to lend their personal discs, These are
collected and returned when needed (a most unwieldy method).
Looking to the
future - if hospital radios were linked by good quality Post Office land-lines
suitable for music (this would be expensive but perhaps worth considering
if funded by the Department of Health and Social Services) then there
could be constant and useful interchange of music. This would be a most
useful facility.
Co-operation exists in some measure between the Ulster Hospital Radio
and Ards Hospital Radio and a link up by land line takes place about once
every two months. Our most recent example was linking a child patient at
the Ulster with her mother who was a patient in Ards. This link up was,
of course, broadcast to the patients of both hospitals,
Records have also been copied over a land line but this was not very satisfactory
because of the poor quality. The patient is able to compare Downtown/BBC with
Hospital Radio just by flicking the bedside switch and consciously or subconsciously
expects them to be technically of the same quality.
There has also been a link-up with Radio Royal one Christmas Eve when Radio Royal
broadcast our live programme from one of the children's wards as the young patients
prepared for Santa. |
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| THE REPORT STATES" (Commenting
on discs) .....Whilst
Ulster Hospital Radio enjoys an informal tie with the BBC......." |
As acknowledged there is this link, but Ulster Hospital Radio also
receives regularly records from both stations. These, of course, are accepted
with pleasure but many are either not well known demo discs, or 'old'.
Pop Music.
Our library has approximately 2,500 records and we fulfil about 90% of
the requested music. New purchases are usually Pop records.
Here it is worth mentioning one fundamental difference between Ulster Hospital
Radio programmes and Downtown/BBC. The latter programmes are geared not
just to the individual, listening for his/her name, but also aims to produce
a musically balanced programme palatable and entertaining to a much larger
target audience. In, say, Paul Clark's Hospital Request programme on BBC
Radio Ulster, there's probably about twenty patients' names mentioned,
but the resulting broadcast is heard and enjoyed by many thousands. Hence
most "professional" record request programmes are "dedications".
The requester's name is mentioned but the music played is chosen by either
the presenter or producer. Whereas in Ulster Hospital Radio - although
other Hospital Radio stations may find different - perhaps 90% of the listeners
are "tuned in" to hear their name mentioned and their favourite
music played. Balance is dropped in favour of giving the "customers"
what they want. Every week, without fai,l we find ourselves playing
the old favourites such as Amazing Grace; Perry Como; Don Williams, etc.
etc., plus, of course, the top twenty.
This programme policy has a direct bearing on the content and requirements
of the station's record library. |
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| THE REPORT STATES"..... a regional body...
.would be an appropriate development at this time." |
There is a nucleus of such a "body" formed recently by an amalgam
of representatives from Ards/Ulster/Royal/Mater Hospital Radios chaired
by Mr. G. Carson, P.R.O. of the Eastern Health and Social Services Board.
In my opinion this is the form that such an advisory group should take.
General observations usually point to a rather defensive attitude adopted by
voluntary bodies when involved with statutory advisory groups. If the "Advisory" brief
becomes too "controlling" this will lose goodwill and enthusiasm of
the volunteers.
Of course there must be control and a fatherly eye kept on Hospital Radio both
over the programme content and the behaviour of the volunteers whilst in the
hospital complex. This is coped with, in our case, by the Unit Administrator
on one level and the Radio Station Manager on the other.
As an extra precaution, to avoid misuse of the facility to broadcast to the patients,
the equipment at the Ulster Hospital RAdio can only be linked through to the
bedside headphones when an "ignition' lock is turned on the mixing console.
The keys for this are allocated by the Hospital Radio Manager. |
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| THE REPORT STATES but does
not discuss..."considerable differences
in approach and philosophy of the two stations." |
| One major difference between many of the Hospital Radios in
Great Britain compared with here, is the size of the population (both
patients and the "outside" population),
and the coverage that that population already receives from the local BBC/Independent
Local Radio stations. If, say, a city is not catered for by a local radio
then there is real value in broadening the scope of Hospital Radio to include
local news and features. Poole, Dorset, Hospital Radio, for instance, offers
an item each week on local churches.
Ulster, and in particular the Greater Belfast Area, appears to be well
covered in terms of local information on the Radio, and I suspect the recent
growth of "Talking
Newspapers for the Blind" are already finding this a stumbling block
- and this aspect might make a suitable survey!
The philosophy of the Ulster Hospital Radio (and that of mine as Station
Manager) is that each programme should have at least some relevance to
the patient. Record requests being the most obvious, and easiest. Interviews
with Hospital Staff and fellow patients being another. Such interviews
give the listener an interest in those around them. We also broadcast items
about activities which the patient can see from the Hospital windows. (Church
parades and a car rally being two recent examples). At Christmas we also
broadcast the Hospital Carol Service. This type of Hospital church service
would well become a bigger feature of our programming.
"Personalities" brought into the studio have little relevance unless
a big point is made that they have come "especially for the patients." The
Ulster Hospital Radio was opened by Mr. and Mrs. Merlyn Rees, but only
after they had taken a considerable tour of the wards.
Hospital Radio is inevitably an "alternative" service and usually
takes the place of a BBC/ILR point on the headphone switch. So we don't
broadcast unless we have something relevant to offer. For instance, there
are no programmes of volunteers introducing and playing their favourite
music. We could fill 24 hours a day with this style of entertainment.
Offers arrive about once a fortnight from prospective presenters asking
to do this (ranging from the disco enthusiast to the classical music
buff).
We might alter this policy if we had a "Channel" to ourselves. (At
the time of this letter we used to opt out of one of the existing channels
to broadcast - BW)
However, one point in favour of non-patient oriented items is that they
give the volunteers a chance to "spread their wings". It's
a dedicated person who can stick three and a half years of Amazing Grace! |
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This ends my comments on the pilot survey into patients' attitudes to
internal hospital broadcasting but may I use this "paper" to discuss
one aspect not mentioned, and not in the report's brief, but nevertheless
relevant.
Namely - Publicity
Hospital Radios need publicity for three reasons:
1. To let the pupulace (present/prospective patients) know that the service
exists.
2. To gather funds and/or equipment and
3. In some cases, but not U.H.R., to recruit volunteers.
In the case of the Ulster Hospital Radio, we have had a. good "crack
of the whip" on all three TV channels plus most of the major provincial
newspapers. Both ourselves and Radio Royal have had half hour programmes
on BBC Radio Ulster and Ards/Royal/Ulster Radio representatives combined
to broadcast an hour long programme on Downtown.
I understand that an introductory booklet about the Ulster Hospital is
being prepared to be given to the patients on admission. It is hoped that
the Hospital Radio will be mentioned in this.
One important aspect, however, is missing, and here we lag behind many
Hospital Radios in Great Britain. That is having our "Radio Times" published
in the local press.
Great Britain newspapers usually print the local hospital radio programmes
alongside the BBC/ILR details.
Perhaps a "once a week" combined details of all hospital radios
with very summarised details would suffice in one of our daily papers.
This is a point which is to be raised during the next meeting of the amalgam
body. |
| Brian Willis (Station Manager - The Ulster Hospital Radio) April 1979 |
THE
ULSTER HOSPITAL RADIO - A HISTORY OF THE EARLY YEARS