Hospital Radio run by volunteers for the patients, staff and visitors of Halton General Hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire - Registered Charity No 1068428

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 What is hospital radio?     What songs are played?    Top 40 requests

How does it help?                    Recent Donations - see the About Us page

      Listen live if you're in Halton Hospital           Events           Interviews               

 

Events

Summer fete 2018

Radio Halton volunteers took part in The Sandymoor community summer fete on Saturday 14 July 2018 ...

... we had a stall there in the team room, here are Paula and Mark ready to chat to people

If you didn't get a chance to chat to us to find out how we help patients in Halton Hospital ... or ask about how you can join our team of volunteers?  We only ask for 2 hours per week...

Thanks to the help of Widnes Wild Ice Hockey club, one of our blue collection boxes is now located in the reception area of Planet Ice at The Hive at Widnes Waterfront

Find out more about how you can help raise funds to keep the radio service going for patients to benefit from it on the Donations section of our About Us page - and see where all our collection boxes are!

Our new computer has been built, delivered and installed in early 2018 ... thanks to a grant from the WHH Charity

You can now hear music & chat from our team of volunteers every hour of every day that you're here in Halton Hospital!

Grateful thanks to our sister station, Radio General, from Warrington Hospital, who allowed us to use their output as a sustaining service whilst we were out of normal action

Thanks are also due to Stephen Reynolds, a local computer expert who in mid March 2018, restored our network between the studio and office computers.  Having done that, we were then able, with help from P Squared tech guys, to get the updated software onto the office computer, which means we can now carry out production work such as adding new songs and recording items like Thought for the Day again

Some songs we'd been asked for but didn't have were added recently are:

• The Pointer Sisters 'I'm so excited'
  
• Miami Sound Machine 'Dr Beat'
• Madonna 'Beautiful stranger'
• Kylie Minogue 'Golden'
  
• Florence and the Machine 'Dog days are over'
  

Two easy ways of giving to Radio Halton: 

1 - Virgin Money Giving

Radio Halton has a page on Virgin Money Giving.  You can make a donation using Virgin Money Giving  Just click the link or the logo

2 - Collection boxes

   You can give donations in coins via our blue collection boxes

in the local area around Runcorn

-we've got some new locations for them in the past few months, the latest one is in Planet Ice, on Widnes Waterfront

Find out where the others are by clicking Donations

Get Active Awards

Radio Halton Volunteer John Timms was honoured for his contribution to health walks at a ceremony in June 2017, with a Volunteer of the Year award by the former Mayor of Halton, Ged Philbin

John is a health walks leader, who supports people to improve their health and wellbeing.  He helped Murdishaw Health Centre put into practice a GP health walk referral scheme

He assessed suitable walk routes and now leads walks, taking time to sit and have a cuppa and chat with patients in the health centre

Rugby League

Throughout the Super League season, we bring you commentary of Widnes Vikings home games in partnership with our fellow volunteers at Radio General in Warrington Hospital

This is thanks to the IT team at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who enable us to relay Radio General's commentary via the Trust's intranet

- Streaming - new URL address

Following the supply and installation of a brand new office computer with a solid state hard drive, streaming on the intranet is thankfully (with the help of fellow volunteer Keith from Radio General) back up and running.  We were looking into the possibility of having the stream sent across the car park to patients in the Cheshire and Merseyside Treatment Centre onto their bedside system, but unfortunately none of the companies that have been approached are willing to maintain the system in the Centre, on account of its age now.  So we're going to look into the possibility of broadcasting in the internet, but this requires specialist equipment, licence fees and a change to our constitution

If you work in the hospital, you can listen on your computer while you work, using Windows Media Player on our new address below.  Just click File, click Open URL..  and type in the url address below... you'll only need to do this once, as it will stay in the drop down list for you to click on next time

          http://D-5Q19RG2:8080

plug in your earphones or a set of computer speakers and we're with you all day

When do Radio Halton broadcast?

You can hear Radio Halton exclusively in Halton General Hospital 24 hours a day, as our broadcasts continue overnight thanks to our Myriad software providing a 'round the clock' schedule.  We include the news on the hour between 10am and 10pm

The hard-wired system feeds to the bedside and the speakers.  We also broadcast within the hospital via streaming on the Trust intranet, so staff in departments can access the service on their workstation computers

Currently, 11 people volunteer their time to provide the service to patients, visitors and staff

What is hospital radio? 

Our volunteers visit patients on the wards and chat with them to help them relax. We find out what music they like, then play it for them when we get back to the studio

In between volunteer visits, patients can use the Radio Halton freephone to request a mention or a song to help the time pass more easily

Volunteer Rob chats to a patient

Patients can settle back into bed or an easy chair and relax to favourite music through ...

...the bedside headset - it's all technology from more than 40 years ago - no wires involved here, just a pipe into the console on the wall with a volume knob and a channel knob - so it is literally piped music! 

• Select channel 3 for Radio Halton

• Select channel 2 for BBC Radio 2
  

We hope to be able to add BBC Radio Merseyside to another channel soon, depending on the radio signal reception to ensure good quality sound

There are loudspeakers in the outpatient clinic waiting areas and also in Entrance 1 - nearest the busway - to help people relax whilst sitting there

Medics agree

Music really helps people -
- and medical professionals agree - 
- see this article from a daily newspaper

Do you know someone in hospital?  You can find the station that serves their hospital and request a song or send them a message.  Just click on the HBA logo below to go to the site of the organisation for hospital radio in the whole of the UK

Are you interested in joining hospital broadcasting?  If so, you can find out what we need people to do on our Join page

The benefits of music in hospital

Legendary folk musician, the late  Dave Swarbrick said, "Hospital radio is a fantastic service, with volunteers giving their time free to entertain patients with music.  When I have been in hospital, which is quite considerable, I have been very glad of it.  As a musician, you don't realise the therapeutic effect it can have until you are receiving it yourself.  Without having music and great friends around me in hospital, I would have been climbing the walls.  Keep up the good work"

Find out more here... Why do we provide music?

Russell Watson also told how music helped him through illness, when chatting to Ken Bruce in Dec 2010:

"Music helps – during the times I’ve been really ill, I’ve listened to a lot of music and I find music incredibly therapeutic.  There were days particularly when I was having the radiotherapy treatment and when I felt really down, and it’d give me a little bit of a lift and a buzz inside"

Paula McCabe has been busy reading in order to review a new book published in January 2018

It's called "Menopause matters: how to master the menopause.. survive, thrive and feel alive" by Shelley Chapman

You can find out more about it here

Interviews

Graham Tarry chatted to Mikey Gilbert of Widnes Wild ice hockey team

It was on Wed 11 April 2018, on Graham's morning show between 10 and 12

Paula McCabe chatted to Anne Dooley in March 2018.  Anne is keen on public speaking and is a member of Toastmasters in Warrington.  It's a non-profit organisation with clubs all over the world. 

Anne also volunteered with Radio Halton for a time a few years ago, so it was good to welcome her back, if only briefly

Elio Pace was at The Brindley Theatre in Runcorn to present his show The Billy Joel Songbook on Thursday 9 November 2017

Our presenter Eileen Kelly had a long in-depth conversation with him on air about the show on Monday afternoon 6 November 2017 - and she's as passionate about Billy Joel's music as Elio!

Make sure of your ticket for his 10 date tour - with David Brown, original guitarist from Billy Joel's band - in May 2018 where the nearest he comes to us is Liverpool's Epstein Theatre (formerly known as The Neptune) in Hanover Street

Graham Tarry chatted to Mikey Gilbert and Georgia Weekes from Widnes Wild Ice Hockey club on his Radio Halton programme on Wednesday 6 September 2017

Find out more about how ice hockey is developing in Halton, since the opening of the Silver Blades in Widnes, now known as Planet Ice

• Derek Gates spent some time chatting with Rev Philip Turner,  who is the Chaplain at the hospital
• Listen out  for "Thought for the Day" short talks from Rev Phil and other local Christians.   Find out more about what chaplains in hospitals offer at http://liverpool.anglican.org/Chaplains-to-Hospitals