IN THE WARDS

Hospital Radio Perth is as committed to visiting patients in the wards as it is to providing a radio service. The whole point of hospital radio is to bring a little cheer to those who are feeling low. The patients have a number of entertainment choices, including Radio Two and Radio Scotland and while our presenters are excellent, they cannot hope to compete with the resources available to the professional stations. Yet invariably, Hospital Radio Perth gets more hospital listeners than all the other channels combined.

All the other stations are excellent at what they do, but they don't have our ability to be local, with news of what's going on in the hospital and throughout Perth and Kinross. In particular they can't hope to compete with our personal service, our ability to visit our listeners before and during the programmes. It's the patient visiting aspect that is the main strength of the 300 hospital stations throughout the United Kingdom.

At Perth we have about 50 members and over half have never broadcast. They are, primarily, ward visitors. Volunteers who head off into the wards to chat to patients and collect requests. We feel that the value of visiting patients should not be underestimated. Often, an elderly patient might be 30 or 40 miles from home with little prospect of regular visits and it's our volunteers who can bring a little cheer by sitting down for a blether for five or ten minutes. Sometimes relatives and friends can't call and it's the hospital radio member that cheers up the one person in the ward with no visitors. Many of our members now keep in regular touch with patients who have become personal friends.

We've had patient requests from as far afield as Australia, New Zealand and the USA - in fact, not long ago we had a request from Alaska!

Just imagine how that must cheer up a patient, hearing a "get well" message from their grandson who they haven't seen for many years.

But that's not all we do. Over the years we have broadcast whole programmes from within a number of wards and elsewhere in both hospitals and we have had a number of well known people visit the wards. The day that members of the Scottish Rugby squad visited was memorable and the afternoon that The Singing Kettle put on a private performance in the children's ward was great fun, but nothing matches the evening that Daniel O'Donnell went ward visiting. Even the nurses were gobsmacked. Years later, we are still regularly asked whether he's coming back!

The ward visiting crew at Perth Royal Infirmary range from teenagers to pensioners and are a fundamental part of the successful hospital radio team. No matter what sort of day you have had, you can't fail to be cheered up when you walk into a ward and a patient says, "I was hoping you'd be in tonight." So often patients tell us that they have been looking forward to our visit, or how much they have enjoyed the programmes. There is no doubt that there is a great deal of job satisfaction to be had from helping out at Hospital Radio Perth.

We never forget who our listeners are. We survey the patients regularly to establish exactly what sort of programmes they want to hear and adjust our service to suit. Of course we hold a smaller, more informal survey every time that we go round the wards collecting requests.

The charity is always on the lookout for more volunteers. Whether you can offer a few hours each week to visit patients or whether you fancy learning to present programmes, operate the computer system, help fund-raise or assist our engineers, Hospital Radio Perth will offer training, support and encouragement and a lot of fun along the way.

Hospital radio means getting out and meeting the listeners, stopping for a chat, listening to what they have to say and providing the service they want to hear. It's about providing a friendly face and We believe that is exactly why Hospital Radio Perth has been voted the top UK hospital radio station on three occasions. We don't pretend to be the world's most professional broadcasters, but we do make every effort to meet our listeners' needs - and have a great time doing it.

If you are a music lover who enjoys meeting people, then Hospital Radio Perth would be delighted to hear from you.

Visit our CONTACTS page to find out how to reach us.