News UPDATE - 01/02/26

 Hospital Broadcasting Association Awards 2026

Congratulations to our very own Gary Skinner, regular presenter of the Classic Rock Show (Thursdays, 8 pm) and the Saturday evening show The Blues Experience. The latter programme has just appeared in the final ten nominations for the National Hospital Radio Awards.

The HBA (Hospital Broadcasting Association) is the national charity representing member stations. They organise the awards every year, with industry professionals assisting on the judging panel.

Congratulations to Gary for being in the best ten nationally, and good luck when the winner is announced in March!

See the announcement here on YouTube: 

https://youtu.be/XcCHhH-rA7Q?t=339  

Rugby Hospital Radio requests 2025

Our librarian and longest serving volunteer (53 years and counting), John Dawson, kindly keeps statistics on the songs requested on a week by week basis.

Currently we are collecting patient's requests from the wards on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. These are played immediately afterwards. 

During 2025, we played a total of 1,881 requests –– a 12.5% increase on the figure from 2024.

The requests covered 530 different artists, with just about every era and genre you can think of, although the majority being mainstream popular music from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Below is the Top 20 most requested artists of 2025

1. Elvis Presley (59 requests)

2. ABBA (47)

3. Frank Sinatra (36)

4. Queen (36)

5. Nat King Cole (28)

6. Rod Stewart (28)

7. The Beatles (25)

8. Cliff Richard (23)

9. Dolly Parton (23)

10. Matt Monro (22)

11. Neil Diamond (21)

12. Cast of a Musical (20)

13. Jim Reeves (17)

14. Buddy Holly (16)

15. Tom Jones (15)

16. Glenn Miller (14)

17. Roy Orbison (14)

18. Tina Turner (14)

19. Bing Crosby (13)

20. Dean Martin (13)

For details of how to message Rugby Hospital Radio, visit www.rugbyhospitalradio.co.uk or look up the Facebook page.

Rugby Hospital Radio returns live and invites requests

Rugby Hospital Radio is broadcasting live for the first time in seven months with a special ‘socially distanced’ arrangement. Now they are asking the public to send requests for relatives and friends in the hospital.

Patients in the Hospital of St Cross can hear programmes from Rugby Hospital Radio 24 hours a day. Volunteers from the charity stopped attending the studio on the hospital site in March and for the last seven months, the service has been heard on a pre-recorded basis only, with programmes broadcast from a computer.

“The hospital management were very keen to find a safe way to bring us back to site”, says Chairman Jim Austin. “We are very grateful to site manager Janine Beddow and her team at St Cross and UHCW Trust volunteer coordinator Kristine Davies for their help. 

“Everything has been done very professionally, with risk assessments for volunteers and safe hygiene practices approved by the Trust’s Infection Prevention and Control Department”.

All programmes are now presented solo with a time gap between presenters. There is a maximum of two live programmes per day, with one in the afternoon and another in the evening, with the rest of the programmes being pre-recorded.

There is however one big omission from the usual service. “For obvious reasons, we are still not able to visit the wards to meet patients and collect their music requests”, Jim explains. “This is the most important aspect of what we do. We are inviting the public to send dedications for family and friends who are patients in St Cross. Patients can listen via the TV/radio unit next to their bed. They can ask the staff for headphones or they can use their own”.

For details of how to message Rugby Hospital Radio, visit www.rugbyhospitalradio.co.uk or look up the Facebook page.