ABOUT HBS
The Hospital Broadcasting Service (HBS) is one of a few hundred radio stations in the UK providing a therapeutic radio service to hospital patients.
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Recognised as one of the top radio stations of its kind, HBS provides nightly request shows to patients in Glasgow and Paisley as well as a wide range of specialist music and information programmes. The main hospital sites that we serve are Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Gartnavel General Hospital, Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre. However since we have broadcast over the internet you can listen to HBS at any hospital site, or anywhere on the planet with internet access, find out more here.
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More than seventy volunteer members are involved in the running of the radio station in lots of different roles, making sure that patients are visited, requests collected, records found and the music choice played. There are lots of support roles too with engineers, fund-raisers, music librarians and team leaders all playing their part in making HBS a vibrant and much appreciated radio service.
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Programmes are broadcast 24 hours a day, though some of this is by an automated system. Throughout the year the volunteers work hard not only in the studios making programmes, but out and about recording things going on in the community and taking part in local events which are then broadcast to the patients. We often run fund-raising events as well, as we don’t get any statutory funding and need to raise over £15,000 per year to cover the costs of running the service. If you see us out collecting, pop some money in our buckets, we’d really appreciate that; you can also donate online here.
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Many of today's well known broadcasters first got behind a microphone at HBS: Ken Bruce (BBC Radio 2), George Bowie (Clyde 1) and Linda Sinclair (BBC), Charles Nove (Scala Radio), Paul Coia (BBC), John Darroch (Smooth Radio) and Ross King (ITV) all took their first steps in broadcasting in our studios. For most however, it's a hobby where they find a real pleasure in giving their time to entertain and inform patients and distract them from their hospital environment.
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All the volunteers receive appropriate training for the roles that they are asked to carry out so if you’ve got an interest in helping with any aspect of the radio service we’d love to hear from you, get started here.
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