OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

← National Association Of Hospital Broadcasting Organisations

2025-08-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report and Accounts Year Ending 31 August 2025

Contents

==> picture [432 x 612] intentionally omitted <==

----- Start of picture text -----
||| |---|---| |Introduction|Page 4| |Welcome from the Chair|Page 5| |Structure, Governance & Management|Page 6| |Charitable Objects|Page 7| |Charitable Activities|Page 8| |Support, Advice & Guidance|Page 8| |Zoom Socials|Page 8| |Annual Conference & National Hospital Radio Awards|Page 9| |Station Visits|Page 10| |Long Service and Recognition Certificates|Page 10| |Communications|Page 10| |Grants Programme|Page 10| |Stakeholder Engagement|Page 11| |Impact Study|Page 11| |Strategy|Page 12| |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |Financial Review|Page 14| |Receipts and Payments Accounts|Page 15| |Statement of Assets and Liabilities|Page 16| |Notes to the Accounts|Page 17| |Independent Examiner's Report|Page 19|

----- End of picture text -----

3

Introduction

The Trustees have pleasure in presenting their Annual Report and Accounts, for the year ended 31 August 2025.

This Report and the attached Accounts have been produced in accordance with the guidance provided by the Charity Commission in its “Receipts and Payments Accounts Pack (CC16)”.

Legal and Administrative Information

Registered Charity Number: 1015501 (England and Wales)

Working Name: Hospital Broadcasting Association (HBA)

Date of Incorporation: 24 September 1992. Converted to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation on 19 September 2019.

Principal Office: 5 Brayford Square, London, E1 0SG

Trustees (Present):

Sam Smette - Chair (Re-elected 5 April 2025)

Ian Pinnell - Vice Chair

Robert Craw - Treasurer

Lee Thomas (Re-elected 5 April 2025)

Roy Dickel - Secretary

Kirsten Karron (From 5 April 2025)

Gareth Hurford (Appointed 18 April 2025)

Bankers:

CAF Bank Ltd, 25 Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent, ME19 4JQ

Aldermore, 1st Floor, Block 18, Western House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough, PE2 6F2

Close Brothers Treasury, 4th Floor, 10 Crown House, London, EC24 4FT

Independent Examiner:

JMW Accounting, 35 Hyperion Lane, Brackley, Northants, NN13 6FU

4

Welcome from the Chair

On behalf of the Trustees of the Hospital Broadcasting Association, I am delighted to welcome you to our Annual Report and Accounts for the year ending 31 August 2025.

This has been a particularly significant year, as we celebrate the centenary of hospital radio in the UK. The first hospital radio station launched at York County Hospital in July 1925, offering patients access to sports commentaries and church services via headphones and loudspeakers beside their beds. From those

pioneering beginnings, hospital radio has grown into a uniquely compassionate and enduring part of the healthcare landscape.

Over the decades, hospital radio expanded steadily and, at its height,nearly 400stations were broadcasting to hospitals nationwide. It also proved a remarkable training ground for broadcasting talent, helping to launch the careers of many names still familiar today, including Ken Bruce, Simon Mayo, Sonali Shah, Scott Mills, JeremyVineand Jacqui Oatley.

The Hospital Broadcasting Association, then known as NAHBO, was founded in 1970 to bring services together and provide support, advice,advocacyand a collective voice. A century on from hospital radio’s beginnings, technology has transformed how we broadcast, but innovation has always been part of our story. While today’s media environment is more competitive than ever, hospital and health & wellbeing radio continues to thrive because it offers something truly distinctive: a personal, human connection that no other broadcaster can replicate.

As healthcare has evolved, so too has our sector. Many hospital radio stations now stream online, broadcast on FM,Small-ScaleDAB, and reach into care homes, healthcentresand local communities. In doing so, they connect with new audiences and support the NHS and wider healthcare sector with content that promotes healthy lifestyles and wellbeing.

This year, our new Impact Report has reaffirmed the value of hospital, health and wellbeing broadcasting across the UK. Drawing on evidence from more than 270 participants, it shows strong recognition among NHS staff of the benefits to patients, alongside clear evidenceof reduced boredom and improved wellbeing. Importantly, it also highlights the growing reach beyond hospital walls, extending companionship, trustedinformationand reassurance into the community.

The Trustee Board has continued to focus on strengthening the Association and supporting our members. We have engaged with key national stakeholders, reviewed our governance arrangements, and invested in trustee development.In response to member feedback, we are also exploring a return to regional networking, alongsidemaintaining a strong focus on innovation.

Much of our work takes place behind the scenes and is not alwaysimmediately visible, but it underpins the support,guidanceand opportunities we provide to our members. This Annual Report highlights some of the achievements and progress made over the past year. I would like to thank our volunteers, member organisations,stakeholdersand supporters for their dedication to this remarkable service.

Sam Smette Chair of Trustees

5

Structure, Governance & Management

HBA is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation governed by its constitution.

Recruitment & Appointment of Trustees

The Trustees are responsible for overseeing strategy, direction and ensuring the charity’s finances are spent in accordance with its charitable objects. The Constitutionallows for the Trustee Board to consist of:

with the actual number being set by the Association’s members at general meetings. During the reporting period there were three Elected Trustee vacancies and three Appointed Trustee vacancies, which the Elected Trustees can fill as they see fit.

Induction & Training of Trustees

New Trustees and volunteers receive an induction on appointment, to enable them to effectively participate in the management of the Association.

Organisation Structure

The operational functions of the organisation are overseen by the trustees, with the support of a team of volunteers who bring a variety of skills and experience to help the Association further its work.

Risk Management

The Trustees are responsible for identifying and reviewing the charity's risks and ensuring controls are in place to minimise fraud and error. They conduct an annual review of financial, operational, and business risks and follow established policies and procedures to manage these risks. These measures include:

To enable the effective running of the association, we added a Leave of Absence clause to our constitution, should a trustee need to leave for a period of time for health or other matters.

6

Charitable Objects

HBA is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation whose charitable objects are to promote the effectiveness and efficiency, for the public benefit, of organisations which:

Vision Statement

To support and represent hospital, community and other broadcasters to aid patient recovery and promote health and wellbeing to all listeners.

Mission Statement

To support, inform, represent and develop hospital, community and other broadcaster sectors.

Public Benefit

The Trustees regularly review the Association’s public benefit in line with Charity Commission guidance and have identified no significant private benefit beyond incidental occurrences during charitable activities.

7

Charitable Activities

Support, Advice & Guidance

In this reporting year, we recruited a new specialist advisor, Kym Ypres-Smith to oversee and offer advice relating to sports broadcasting.

Our Specialist Advisors continued to deliver for our members in their respective areas. One area that is notable is our Charity Governance & Management / Licensing Specialist Advisor Nigel Dallard, who dealt with:

The management and governance issues faced by stations ranged from insurance; the role of trustees; the relationship between the hospital radio station and their NHS Trust or NHS Health Board and constitutional interpretation. Also in this reporting year, we recruited a Sports Broadcasting Specialist Advisor to advise member organisations of sports broadcasting rights and other queries, with work continuing for our fundraising and audio specialist advisors.

Elsewhere, our support continued by providing member organisations shared programming opportunities. In this reporting year, we relaunched the shared programming list on our website, making it easier for our volunteers to update and our members to navigate. Our new website was also launched, providing an inviting front door to those who wish to find out more about HBA or our member organisations. Utilising a new ‘Dashboard’ area, members are now able to generate their own achievement certificates, update member records, download shared programmes and an array of other documents and materials that they might find useful.

Zoom Socials

We continued to run our monthly Zoom Socials, providing an opportunity for volunteers from member organisations to get together online to hear from expert speakers in a particular field, or ask questions of HBA Trustees and volunteers directly. Topics have included: How to use your jingle package; grant/ funding applications; Honing in on AI; Mastering Advertising & Sponsorship and more.

These still prove a popular way for member organisations and their volunteers to engage with HBA and each other. During the reporting year, 249 volunteers from member organisations attended our Zoom Socials, our Zoom Socials saw 249 attendees, with an average of 17 members being represented throughout the year.

8

Annual Conference and the National Hosptial Radio Awards

Our 2025 Annual Conference and the National Hospital Radio Awards were held in Hinckley, Leicestershire. Paul Coia, who was the first voice to be heard on Channel 4, delivered our keynote address, talking through his career and taking questions from the floor.

Content at our conference this year included a talk from NHS England on the launch of their new volunteering platform; a session on volunteer engagement lead by one of our own member organisations; a discussion on licensing with PPL, who were also headline sponsors of the conference and a panel discussion with Charles Nove and Steve Hyland, both respected broadcasters, who offered their advice and guidance on how we can transition towards a meaningful future for health and wellbeing broadcasting together.

The weekend accumulated in the 2025 National Hospital Radio Awards, which celebrated volunteers of hospital, health and wellbeing broadcasters from across the country. This year, we invested in professional photographers and videographers, allowing us to not only share professional recordings of each session with stations and those who couldn’t attend via our dashboard, but to also help aid the promotion of our annual conference and awards for years to come.

We looked to refresh some awards categories and introduce some new ones too. As such, the John Whitney Award was renamed the HBA Lifetime Achievement Award, while we added a new Unsung Hero category, which was awarded to Spence Canniffe from The Hospital Broadcasting Service in Glasgow for his dedication and commitment to the station.

Listening to our members is important and following their feedback, we restructured the format for Conference in 2025, kicking off with Friday Night entertainment and registration from 4:00pm, while the main day of Conference on Saturday started slightly later with proceedings starting at around 9:45am. We also sought feedback from those who didn’t attend the Conference in 2025 to find out why and what we could do to encourage them to participate. The overwhelming feeling amongst those surveyed was the cost of conference, something which we’ve addressed for our 2026 event, by using some of our Conference Bursary fund to give everyone money off the cost of Conference 2026 across all variations of ticket types.

We were pleased to announce at the end of our 2025 Conference that our 2026 event will be held at the Holiday Inn, Bolton, Greater Manchester in March, as we look to celebrate 100 years of hospital radio.

9

Station Visits

We visited several stations throughout the reporting year to attend celebratory events, including station anniversaries and to deliver long service and recognition certificates directly to volunteers. Station visits also formed a pivotal part of the research for our upcoming Impact Report, where we were able to hear stories from volunteers on the frontline.

Long Service and Recognition Certificates

Our President, June Snowden, was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to hospital, health and wellbeing broadcasting in HM The King’s New Year Honours List, revealed at the end of 2024.

In The King’s Birthday Honours List later in the year, two hospital, health and wellbeing volunteers were awarded the BEM, including Neil Stockton, Chairman of Radio Cherwell based in Oxford and Malcolm Kirby, from Red Dot Radio in Edinburgh.

Alongside those national accolades, many members made use of our new self-serve certificate portal on our website, giving volunteers the ability to recognise their own volunteers for long service or other recognitions throughout the year, with an option to invite a HBA Trustee or volunteer to present the certificate on the station's behalf.

Communication

Pictured: June Snowden receives BEM from Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, Mrs Johanna Ropner.

We launched our new website, providing members with a new way to gain access to programmes, certificates and documents that will help in their ability to run their stations or produce shows. Our new website is easier to navigate and continues to be an important hub for members organisations, packed with information, advice and guidance. New functionality also includes the ability to generate recognition certificates, and access an interactive shared programme library.

Our monthly newsletter continues to grow in popularity and is now open to anyone who wishes to subscribe. The newsletter is produced by Laura Durrant, our new editor, and now has over 2,000+ subscribers. Aside from the regular newsletters, we send ad-hoc emails to our station administrators and volunteers of stations with a range of information that supports them to run their stations and produce programmes.

Grants Programme

Our grants programme continues to flourish, with over £12,000 awarded in grants for stations to to purchase equipment or other materials required by them which they are unable to afford to purchase from their own funds.

Grimsby Hospital Radio were awarded £3,500 in December 2024 for capital investment into a refresh of their IT systems, while Hospital Radio Basingstoke were awarded £2,000 to contribute to a silence detection unit.

In May 2025, £848.86 was awarded to Radio Wishing Well as capital investment into new playout system computers and in July of the same year, Torbay Hospital Radio were awarded £2,637.60 for an air conditioning system for their studios.

10

Stakeholder Engagement

We continued to engage with PPL and PRS For Music and developed new stakeholder relations with several organisations, including the Experience and Partnerships team at NHS England, working closely with their Voluntary Partnerships Manager to encourage our member organisations in England to utilise the new NHS England Volunteering website to help stations recruit volunteers. Nicola Monk, the Voluntary Partnerships Manager also attended our Annual Conference to deliver a session about the new platform and to myth bust and answer queries from stations about their own NHS trusts’ take on volunteer recruitment processes (e.g. the requirement to have a blood test etc.)

In December 2024, hospital radio was featured in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), with a two page spread highlighting the work of hospital radio, our member organisations and their volunteers, citing the importance of our work and the work of our member organisations. The BMJ is the medical professions journal and is read by nearly 80 million users annually online, while the print magazine has a circulation of around 122,000 copies. Our feature was published both online and in the print edition. Shortly after this, we engaged with the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and subsequently hospital radio was mentioned in the House of Lords, further strengthening awareness.

Pictured: Anna Hazelwood and Darryl Biggs, from PPL at the HBA Annual Conference, 2025.

Impact Study

We commissioned The Researchery to work with us to produce an updated version of our Impact Report. We know the landscape has changed in hospital, health and wellbeing broadcasting since our last report in 2016 and more so since 2020 when our stations and volunteers had to find new ways to broadcast during COVID. Some are still reeling from the effects of not being able to visit wards, while others have adapted and changed the way they operate. This report, when released during the 2025/26 reporting period, will highlight the changing shifts of hospital, health and wellbeing broadcasting, while still highlighting the pivotal role our member organisations play.

Pictured: Delegate participating in The Researchery workshop at the HBA Annual Conference, 2025.

Pictured top left: Nicola Monk, Voluntary Partnerships Manager, NHS England, at the HBA Annual Conference, 2025. Pictured top middle: Sam Smette, HBA Chair of Trustees, delivering a welcome to our Annual Conference in 2025. Pictured top right: Dr. Cat Walker from The Researchery, delivering a session for members at our 2025 Conference.

11

Strategy

In May 2025, the Trustees updated their strategic objectives from July 2024. Our work towards these objectives has been referenced in the Charitable Activities section of this report, however below is an overview of the updated objectives and actions within:

Communication

Objective: Strengthen relationships with existing and potential stakeholders.

There has been a continued focus on improving internal and external communication and engagement with HBA volunteers, member organisations and stakeholders. During the year, regular email updates and newsletters were re-established, alongside increased use of social media to share information and opportunities.

The Board has also begun to consider how member engagement might be strengthened over time through a combination of regional activity, following feedback from our members, as well as how external media and PR activity could help raise awareness of the role and impact of hospital, health and wellbeing broadcasting.

Governance

Objective: Enhance governance and board effectiveness.

Work has continued to focus on strengthening governance and leadership, with particular emphasis on trustee development and effective governance practice. Trustees explored relevant training opportunities and sources of governance support, alongside reflection on board skills and composition. Diversity and inclusion continue to be important considerations in supporting effective leadership and decision-making.

Stakeholder Engagement

Objective: Strengthen relationships with existing and potential stakeholders.

Relationships across health, broadcasting and government have continued to develop. Engagement included dialogue with organisations such as PPL and NHS, as well as written communication with MPs and government departments, including a meeting with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. HBA and hospital radio were also referenced in wider parliamentary discussion, contributing to broader awareness of the sector. Initial work to develop and share evidence of impact has taken place and will continue to evolve as part of a longerterm strategic approach.

New Technology for Members

Objective: Leverage new technologies to improve broadcasting and support for members.

Growth

Objective: Expand HBA's reach into health and wellbeing community broadcasting.

The Trustees continue to explore how new and emerging technologies could support member organisations in delivering health and wellbeing content. During the year, this included activity to raise awareness of digital developments, such as AI, through conference sessions, online events and informal member discussions. The Board is also mindful of the potential for shared tools or platforms to support collaboration in future and continues to keep this under review.

HBA has looked at opportunities to support sustainable growth and extend its reach within health and wellbeing community broadcasting. Early-stage conversations took place with sector bodies such as the UK Community Radio Network and the Community Media Association, alongside engagement with potential partners and sponsorships through conference activity. These discussions inform longer-term thinking around partnerships, profile and organisational sustainability.

12

Accounts and financial statements Year Ending 31 August 2025

Financial Review

The Statement of Assets and Liabilities on page 16 shows the Association at the end of the financial period with a deficit of £40,201. This is higher than last year due mainly to the costs of developing and launching our new website and updating our research into the impact of hospital radio, which is due to be published next year.

We also reverted to our 2-day annual conference at Hinckley and provided a true gala event with excellent attendance and included interesting speakers, exhibitors and presentation of the National Hospital Radio Awards.

We were also very successful in promoting the grants and bursaries scheme this year. Funds were allocated to station grants for various improvements and developments, while bursaries were offered for volunteers to attend the conference and experience the atmosphere, participate in networking and attend informative workshops and seminars to help develop both technical and personal skills. We are grateful for the continued support of PPL which has allowed us to fund such worthy cases.

The Association has a set of Financial Management Policies which define the controls to be implemented to ensure that the Association’s assets are secure. These policies meet all the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 and the Charity Commission guidelines “Internal Financial Controls for Charities”.

The Association has a Financial Reserves Policy which details the reasons why it needs to retain a certain level of reserves to enable it to continue to operate in case of certain eventualities. The policy meets the Charity Commission guidelines "Charities and Reserves".

In preparing this report, the Trusteeshave opted for independent examination under the Charities Act 2011 and to use receipts and payments accounting.

The Trustees confirm that all the relevant information has been made available to the Association’s advisers to assist in the preparation of the attached financial statements.

Approved by order of the Trustee Board and signed on its behalf by:

Sam Smette Robert Craw Chair of Trustees Treasurer

14

Receipts and Payments Accounts

15

Statement of Assets & Liabilities

16

Notes to the accounts

17

Notes to the accounts

18

Independent examiner's report

==> picture [29 x 9] intentionally omitted <==

----- Start of picture text -----
15-18
----- End of picture text -----

19

Trustees Annual Report & Accounts = amnrcamay Cisc, - Year Ending 31 August 2025 a "

Web: hbauk.com Email: info@hbauk.com