Southend Hospital Radio, providing a 24-hour service for patients at Southend University Hospital. as been nominated for two radio programming awards in the Hospital Broadcasting Association’s “National Hospital Radio Awards 2025“.

In the annual competition that highlights excellence in broadcasting across the nation’s hospital radio stations, Southend’s hospital radio station has been nominated in two categories:

Best Special Event: Tackle The Tower

In May 2024, nearly 80 local people took the ultimate challenge of abseiling down the side of the Southend Hospital Tower Block for charity, including one of the station’s presenters, Charlie Palmer.

On the evening of the event, a 20 minute highlights programme was broadcast capturing the day’s events, talking to the event organisers, hearing some of the stories behind why people were tackling the tower, and finding out where the money was going. The highlights programme was produced and presented by Pete Sipple.

Hospital Radio presenter Charlie Palmer as he Tackles The Tower

Best Speech Package: Election 24

It is station policy not to cover politics and not to provide live election coverage, so our team took a different approach in 2024. Rather than focussing on the politics and the results, we took a look behind the scenes at an election night count. The secondary aim was to understand the methods that exist to allow those not able to vote in future elections to still be able to have their say, which can be used as public service content for future local and national elections in and around the city of Southend-on-Sea.

We secured an exclusive interview with the City Council’s Chief Executive and Returning Officer Colin Ansell to find what goes on behind the scenes in the run-up to an election, who’s involved in counting the ballot papers and at the polling stations, and how those not able to vote in person can still have their vote counted.

Free from politics, we also spoke to candidates to find out how they, as individuals, feel on election day and why voting is so important. Located in the press area at the Garons Park, Southend-on-Sea count, we were able to gain a unique insight into what goes on behind the scenes making for several programme features heard on the radio station. 

Watching the count – Election 24 – Southend Hospital Radio

A video of UK shortlists, voiced by “voice of the balls” Alan Dedicote, is available from the HBA YouTube channel.

The winners of the national awards will be announced in April 2025. Please cross your fingers for us!