Hospital radio

In 1921 an Englishman named Thomas Handstock wrote to the general post office to ask for permission to conduct experiments with portable wireless telegraph apparatus. He did this because he’d had the genius idea to create radio stations in hospitals for the patients to listen to and enjoy while they were being treated in hospital. He came up with this idea in during 1925 and during the same year the first ever hospital radio was opened at York County hospital. 200 sets of headphones and 70 loud speakers fed from a wireless receiving set housed in a small alcove in the hospital. The idea was for volunteers from the general public to run the radio stations from the hospital or an area nearby. Most radio stations were set up AM but there were some, the more popular ones in the larger hospitals that were set up on FM. Most of them are tuned into the systems next to the patient’s beds and they can also contact the station too through this system. After York County hospital’s station was set up, many soon followed the trend and before long there were many hospital radios across the country. During World War 2 a lot of broadcasting stopped from the stations but during the 1950’s popularity soon grew again. In the 1960’s there were around 100 hospital radio stations across the UK and this grew by the 1980’s too around 700 stations. Nowadays 90% of the UK’s hospital population have access to the stations. This means around 18 million people have access a year in 800 different hospitals. There is now a Hospital Radio Association which oversees everything that goes on at the stations.