Our History

Watford Hospital Radio began in 1955 in a broom cupboard in the Peace Memorial Hospital. The earliest programmes were recorded football commentaries from Watford’s Vicarage Road ground which were played back over the hospital radio system later that evening. This proved so popular with the patients in the hospital that a land line was soon installed so live coverage of the games could be relayed to the hospital.

In the early days church services were also broadcast to the hospital via the land lines from St Mary’s Parish Church and the Watford Congregational Church. This led, in May 1967 to pre-recorded music programmes and in December of that year all four Hospitals in the Watford area were joined up by land lines so the patients could hear special Hospital Radio programmes.

The recorded broadcasts were so successful that the various groups of people who were producing programmes decided to form the Watford Hospitals Broadcasting Service and registered it as a charity.

They set up a special studio, located in the former kitchen manager’s office where live programmes could be produced. Due to the limited space available, this also doubled as a record library and equipment store.

With the building of the new Watford General Hospital, Watford Hospital Radio acquired their own complex on Level 7 with a self-contained studio, together with a large interview/rest room which also contained the record library. The new studio was officially opened by Noel Edmonds on 26th January 1985.

In January 1992 the Hospital generously handed another room over to us, which enabled us to build a dedicated recreation room, a record library and eventually a second studio. The re-development of the complex commenced the following month with the refurbishment of the storage area above the studio.

Later in the year, our premises continued to expand when the Hospital kindly agreed to allow us to use part of a ground floor room as an Outside Broadcast Store. Ironically this was the very same room that had housed our original studio! The room served us well for several years before being returned to the hospital for use as a store for their regular car boot sales. More recently, there’s been a lot of work in our level 7 complex and the studios have been re-equipped and refurbished. Various celebrities, including Graham Taylor and Johnnie Walker have visited to open new studio spaces.

The Pulse Hospital Radio now broadcasts 24 hours a day, with the help of automated programming at certain times. Our coverage of Watford FC now includes live commentaries of all home games. We broadcast within the Trust’s inpatients areas, via the bedside Hospicom Units, on the internet and via the Tunein app. In the future we hope to spread our coverage across all the West Hertfordshire hospital sites.

After merging with Hemel Hospital Radio in Autumn 2014 we have gained an additional studio, record library, store room for more outside broadcasting equipment and an electrical/technical facilities room.

Following the merger, the two Stations were rebranded as The Pulse Hospital Radio, and the growing membership of volunteers are now providing more live programming for the patients and staff of hospitals across West Herts.

We have come a long way in the past 62 years

Comments (0)