Radio Warneford, the hospital radio service based at Warwick Hospital, is finally back on the air and broadcasting to patients across South Warwickshire!
The station, based at Warwick Hospital and broadcasting to patients for 45 years, fell silent in December 2018 after the introduction of NHS Wi-Fi by the South Warwickshire Foundation Trust (SWFT) to replace their in-house Patient Wi-Fi service.
Radio Warneford had been broadcasting via Patient Wi-Fi since Premier Telesolutions stopped providing TV and radio services at the bedside. The change from local servers to remote ones for the new wi-fi service meant that Radio Warneford’s bespoke connection and player web pages could no longer be accessed.
Radio Warneford has now re-launched as an internet-based hospital radio station. This has meant a lot of work behind the scenes over the past few months to secure new music licences, find a host for the live broadcast stream, and to make sure that existing programmes from our 24-hour stream comply with new restrictions imposed on the station as an internet broadcaster.
The opportunity was also taken to launch a new design for the station’s website and to create new ways for patients to contact the on-air team or ask for a music request.
Patients at the main SWFT hospitals – Warwick and Stratford hospitals, Ellen Badger Hospital in Shipston-on-Stour and the Leamington Spa Rehabilitation Hospital – are now able to tune in to Radio Warneford at any time on their tablets, phones or laptops either free via NHS Wi-Fi or by connecting directly to the live stream at https://live.radiowarneford.com.