Royal Free Radio – Giving the patients a real tonic
Royal Free Radio broadcasts to hospital patients in Chase Farm, North Middlesex and the Royal Free hospitals, and is operated entirely by a team of volunteers in their spare time. Previously known as Radio Enfield, we’ve been broadcasting from studios in Chase Farm Hospital since 24 May 1970.
Our main programmes are the Request shows for patients, which are broadcast “live” every night Sunday to Friday from 8pm to 10pm.
Request collecting from the wards is carried out on a rota basis, but as we can’t always get to every ward, and the pandemic has unfortunately prevented us from doing so at all just recently, there are other ways requests can be sent in by patients, friends or relatives, especially when visiting is restricted:
- Via our website – co.uk/requests
- By phone on 020 8363 6000 (normal call charges apply)
Patients sometimes put in a request for another patient on their ward who might be feeling a bit lonely or unwell and it could be just the thing they need to cheer them up. Often patients put a request in for the nursing staff too!
The range of music played on Royal Free Radio is unlike any other radio station. We cater for all tastes in music (and this is mostly determined by the requests coming in), so that we could be playing some Beethoven followed by Adele or Michael Bublé, comedy from Morecambe & Wise, then jazz from Kenny Ball followed by “The Sound of Music”, a “golden oldie” or the current No. 1 in the charts.
We always play every request we receive and if we can’t find the actual record in our vast library accumulated over 52 years will always find an alternative.
Our most requested record over the 52 years of Radio Enfield/Royal Free Radio is “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. In the days of vinyl records we lost count of how many copies of this record were worn out by us but fortunately today’s music media is more durable!
Other popular artists include Elvis Presley and The Beatles. There are always the patients in the surgical wards who jokingly ask for Rod Stewart’s The First Cut Is The Deepest!
We can be heard free of charge at all three hospitals 24/7 on TV channel 800 at Chase Farm (the default channel – turn on your TV and there we are!), TV channel 0 at North Mid via a remote control, and radio channel 1 on the bedside equipment at the Royal Free. You can also tune in via our website royalfreeradio.co.uk (click on “Listen Live”) and on various listening devices and platforms.