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2025-01-31-accounts

Registered Charity Number: 1177939

BRISTOL HOSPITAL BROADCASTING SERVICE TRUSTEES’ REPORT & ACCOUNTS YEAR ENDED 31[ST] JANUARY 2025

Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Contents
Page
Trustees’ Report 2-9
Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees 10
Receipts and Payments Account 11
Statement of Assets and Liabilities 12-13
Notes to the Accounts 14-15

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Trustees’ Report

The Trustees of Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service are pleased to present their Report and Accounts for the period 1[st] February 2024 to 31[st] January 2025.

Organisation

Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (‘CIO’) registered in England and Wales on 12[th] April 2018 and governed by a constitution signed on 16[th] December 2020.

The organisation is managed by the Charity Trustees who are elected by its membership.

Throughout the period the charity continued to operate with no paid staff, being run entirely by a dedicated group of volunteers.

Charitable Objects

Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service (‘BHBS’) has two objects:

  1. “the relief of sickness, poor health and old age amongst people living in Bristol and the surrounding area by providing a local broadcasting service for hospitals, residential homes and similar institutions, and for patients receiving community care; and

  2. “the advancement of health and prevention or relief of sickness for the public benefit through the promotion of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, and the importance of maintaining good personal mental and physical health by (mainly, but not exclusively) the means of broadcasting health education messages to people living in Bristol and the surrounding area.”

These objects are based on the model wording agreed between the Hospital Broadcasting Association (‘HBA’) and the Charity Commission.

BHBS provides a hospital radio service to patients at various hospital sites via local Wi-Fi in furtherance of the charity’s first object.

The second of these objects allows BHBS to also target its services at the local population, not just those in hospitals and care homes, with the intent of helping and encouraging listeners to live a healthy and active life in the local community, and therefore potentially reducing the use of health services.

In managing the charity, the Trustees have, at all relevant times, had regard to the charity's charitable objects, and the Charity Commission's public benefit guidance (PB1, PB2 and PB3).

Review of Activities and Achievements

During the period BHBS, operating under the working name ‘Hospital Radio for Bristol’, provided a hospital radio and ward visiting service to hospitals managed by University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (the ‘Hospital Trust’) in central Bristol.

The Trustees would like to express their continued gratitude to the Hospital Trust for providing us with our studio space in the main Queens Building of the Bristol Royal Infirmary (‘BRI’) and the opportunity for us to offer our services to their patients. BHBS relies solely on the infrastructure provided by the Hospital Trust and the Wi-Fi service provider WiFi Spark to enable our broadcasts to be accessed from around the hospital locations via patients/staff visitors own personal device that has Wi-Fi capabilities, such as smartphones, tablets or laptops. We would like to express our thanks specifically to the IT team within the Hospital

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Trust and Wifi Spark for their continued support in enabling broadcasts. The Trustees would also like to place on record our thanks to our chief engineer, Rick Parsons, who, usually single handedly, has fixed problems as they occur as well as keeping up with day-to-day maintenance of our studios and planning for possible future studio activities. All of the activities referred to under the technical section of this report were undertaken by Rick, so his contribution is hugely appreciated.

We have made significant progress throughout the period in improving our publicity around the hospital sites, via posters, leaflets and distributing magazines (produced by Smile Publications). We have had active engagement from various members of staff and departments around the hospitals to make sure our publicity materials are displayed. This is a very encouraging development for us. Our challenge will be to keep up this momentum throughout 2025.

Regaining access to the wards continues to be an extremely frustrating, time consuming, and it must be said, exhausting task, with a number of hurdles continually stand in our way. The Trustees would like to place on record that continuing bureaucracy within the NHS has a serious effect on any plans that can be made by the charity, operating within the hospital environment, and whilst we have good relationships within the Voluntary Services department, it does feel that more time than necessary is taken up trying to implement ideas or come up with solutions to problems as they arise. This would appear to go against the idea of volunteers freely giving up their own time. We are optimistic that the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Voluntary Services will open up the possibility of returning to ward visiting in 2025 and this is our main objective for the early part of 2025.

Looking forward, we will continue to look at ways of maximising our publicity around the hospital sites using a mixture of publicity materials and potential new technological advances that will enable us to meet our goals and ambitions for future years.

Volunteers

We have continued to receive much interest from a variety of potential volunteers. After receiving a completed application form, they are invited for a “show and tell” within the studio on level 10 of the BRI. If everything is in order and they are still keen to join us they go forward to the required computer-based hospital induction. This can take a little time, but we are glad to say that we are now welcoming new and capable volunteers to the studio of a high standard which bodes well for our broadcasts and the future of the service.

Our volunteers cover a wide spectrum of ages from students to retired persons. This gives volunteers an opportunity to meet and work with those who they may not meet otherwise in normal circumstances all with a shared interest.

In the summer of 2024, the Hospital Trust organised a social gathering in a bar in the City Docks for Volunteers’ Week and our volunteers were invited to this celebration event to thank them for their contribution to the NHS.

We would like to thank Voluntary Services for their help and assistance during the last year.

In June 2024 Chris Napier passed away. Chris joined the service in the early ‘70s becoming a Trustee shortly afterwards. He presented such shows as Ward Round, Anything Goes and Spectrum, which was followed by a move to Radio West, a station closely associated with hospital radio, in the ‘80s. Chris stayed in touch with the service and would attend social events and even cropped up occasionally on the Old Gits & Hits show. He will be remembered for his wicked sense of humour.

Chris Serle, our honorary president of nearly 20 years, unexpectedly died during the year. Chris was an active president, attending many of our AGMs and our 60th anniversary meal and was always happy to give advice or hand out the occasional volunteer award. We’re

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

sure many members appreciated his appearance at the 2019 AGM where he gave a potted history of his broadcasting career. Chris will be much missed by the hospital radio community, and we intend to honour his memory during 2025.

Programming

As part of our core activities, we transmit a variety of music programmes, along with national & local news, drama, quizzes, interviews, health messages, hospital news and more. Most of these programmes are pre-recorded and broadcast via our automated playout system. However, the highlight of the schedule is undoubtedly our live programmes which includes request shows, which air three nights a week, and our sports output. Our volunteers collect requests from patients and visitors in public areas, tell them about our service, and generally provide a welcome distraction.

Following the refurbishment of Bristol Beacon (formally the Colston Hall) we have resumed broadcasting live classical concerts. Our first concert was the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Beacon’s resident orchestra, on Thursday 21[st] March 2024.

We continued to increase our stock of original in-house produced pre-recorded programmes during the period with more editions of ‘Step Aside for the Stars’ and ‘Memories Are Made of Music’.

With more new volunteers coming on board, we plan to increase the number of live request programmes each week.

We have pushed forward with our goal to be unique and local with an emphasis on health and wellbeing. We continue to broadcast more hospital related content within our evening news bulletins with a focus towards events happening within hospitals. We also broadcast around 560 minutes of health and wellbeing messages throughout the week which equates to 5.55% of our output. This should continue to increase over time.

Various departments within the Trust are becoming involved with our programmes.

Sport

It was another year of excellent coverage as we continued to bring sporting outside broadcasts to our listeners for both the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons - something we first provided for listeners way back in 1952.

With the continued growth of Women's Football the action from the home fixtures of Bristol City Women - live from Ashton Gate - were brought to life by Matt Sowerby. Unfortunately, this has meant only Championship football as we entered the 24/25 season due to the relegation from the WSL at the end of the 23/24 season.

Meanwhile the men's team have been playing in the EFL Championship once again under the stewardship of Liam Manning - the now well matured City commentary team continue to cast their eyes over the Robins’ endeavours.

It's been all change up at the Mem with a new team of Matt Sowerby, Euan Campbell and Charlie Bonner doing their best to cheer up any Gas fans in the BRI as Rovers have struggled to cheer up their fans in the stadium!

Oval ball action from the Gate has continued with commentary of Bristol Bears in the Gallagher English Premiership broadcast to our Rugby fans in the BRI.

The Trustees, as always, would like to thank the football clubs and the rugby club for allowing us to broadcast these matches and of course all the members of our commentary teams that cover the games, for the excellent and most professional service they provide in helping to bring non-music content to Hospital Radio for Bristol listeners.

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Technical

This year we started broadcasting classical concerts from Bristol Beacon. This involved setting up a permanent stereo microphone suspended from one of the lighting gantries over the Beacon Hall and positioned to pick up the sound from the main stage. The coverage is such that it should cope with small to very large groups of performers and listeners can hear exactly what the audience hears. The mic is now connected permanently to tie lines going back to the control room. We obtained a new laptop and a small mixer designed for use by podcasters. The communication is using CleanFeed, originally a free but professional service that allows high-quality, two-way audio over the internet. This was upgraded to the pro version resulting in a modest monthly subscription. The new mixer proved useful for other recordings, for example the chaplaincy carols concert, for later broadcast. Our thanks to the technical department at the Beacon for their assistance throughout.

There was a considerably improvement in October to the sound quality of our broadcasts when, after a lot of negotiation over a number of years, we finally managed to get a direct high speed broadband service into the studios without going through the hospital telephone wiring. Thanks to the OpenReach engineer who went out of his way to see this project through.

We have installed a statistic module that now allows us, for the first time, to monitor audience numbers. Some new microphones were also purchased to bring us up to the full complement of seats in each studio.

There was continued maintenance throughout the period of our vast amount of studio and outside broadcast equipment.

Fundraising

We held two bucket collections during the year. The first was a summer event at Sainsbury’s, Emersons Green, where we raised £592. We then held our 25[th] annual collection at Tesco, Brislington over two days in December raising a total of £1,944. Both amounts are before card payment fees have been deducted. We were unfortunately unable to hold a second Sainsbury’s collection at Christmas due a red weather warning, however they have offered us another summer collection in 2025.

Governance

Our 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held in the Education Centre at the BRI. Both Paul Popiel and Chris Wood were reappointed as Trustees. Broadcaster Chris Serle also agreed to continue as our honorary president however, as reported earlier, it was with great sadness we learnt of his passing during the year. After a time of reflection, the Trustees will look to find a new honorary president.

The Trustees wish to bolster the board by appointing at least one new Trustee who is not currently a member of the charity to give us a fresh perspective. Unfortunately, due to other governance and operational matters we have been unable to achieve this ambition this year.

Towards the end of the period the Hospital Trust shared a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU); the purpose of which is to set out how Hospital Radio for Bristol and the Hospital Trust will work together on a daily basis. Once this has been agreed, we expect to be able to recommence ward visiting.

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Membership

There are four classes of membership, along with a probationary membership:

Both associate and honorary members are classed as non-voting members and do not qualify as members for any purpose under the Charities Acts, General Regulations or Dissolution Regulations.

During the period the annual membership subscription fee was £25 (2024: £25). The average number of qualifying members was 27 (2024: 29).

We are grateful for the many hours our volunteers have spent collecting requests, fundraising and programme making. Without this valuable contribution of time, energy and expertise we would not be able to achieve so much.

Acknowledgements

We would like to pay particular thanks to: HBA for its advice and guidance throughout the period; Smile Publications for our patients’ magazine and regular donations; John Malyckyj for covering our Bristol Rovers outside broadcast costs; Tesco for allowing us to hold a bucket collection at their store; and Laura Parslow for, once again, independently examining our accounts at no costs to ourselves. In addition, we thank Bristol Beacon, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, and Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra for granting us permission to broadcast their concerts.

Review of Financial Activities and Affairs

The financial position of BHBS remains satisfactory with the charity holding sufficient cash reserves at year end. The charity had unrestricted funds of £15,825, with income of £4,938 and expenditure of £6,503.

Receipts

Income is generated from several sources, however principally it comes from donations from individuals, companies and other organisations, sponsorship, membership subscriptions, and Gift Aid. Receipts totalled £4,938 for the year (2024: £3,768).

Donations are unpredictable and often fluctuate from one year to the next, but we saw a substantial increase this year. However, due to a timing difference, last year’s amount was unusually low.

Fundraising is up on last year. Our Christmas collection at Tesco was down on the previous year, although the 2024 was exceptional, however we held a summer collection at Sainsbury’s which boosted our results. Our overall fundraising total would have been higher had we not had to cancel a planned Christmas collection at Sainsbury’s due to poor weather.

Sponsorship income was from Fledglings Day Nursery (Fishponds) Ltd in support of our Bristol Rovers commentaries.

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Gift Aid, bank interest and membership subscriptions accounts for the remainder of our receipts.

Payments

A tight control has been maintained over expenditure during the period. Payments totalled £6,503 (2024: £4,010).

We were able to stabilise most of our costs with either a decrease or modest increase in costs compared to the prior period. However, there were some exceptions and some new expenditure.

There was a significant increase to repairs, renewals and equipment due in main to the recommencement of broadcasting from Bristol Beacon resulted in need to acquire new equipment as the previous kit had become obsolete so had been either scrapped or sold. Further, there was an unexpected cost when it became apparent that the Beacon mixer, which had been repurposed, was not suitable to the task, so a new mixer costing £589 was required.

The decision was taken to spend some of our funds on publicity, something we have done little of in the past. We spent £196 on posters and leaflets for use in the BRI and £176 on a new logo as our old logo was considered too complicated and outdated. The new logo can be seen on the front page of this report.

Three of our Trustees attended the HBA conference and were able to bring back lots of intelligence and useful ideas from other organisations operating in the same space as us.

Subscriptions, licences and website costs has continued to rise, due in part to an increase in existing expenditure, but also due to new licences required for the Beacon, and to monitor listening figures.

All other costs should be self-explanatory and have remained relatively stable or reduced to £nil.

Financial Management and Reserves Policy

The charity has a Financial Management Policy which defines the controls to be implemented to ensure that the charity’s assets are secure. This policy meets all the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 and the Charity Commission guidelines “Internal Financial Controls for Charities” (CC8).

The charity has a Reserves Policy which sets out our free reserves, which are defined as non-designated unrestricted funds. There are a range of risks we face, including the risk of an unforeseen drop in income or unbudgeted increases in expenditure.

The policy sets out the framework we have in place to confirm the level of reserves we have determined is appropriate for our organisation and draws upon advice such as the Charity Commission’s “Charity reserves: building resilience” (CC19) guidance.

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

We have calculated an appropriate reserves range for our organisation of £4k to £9k which is broken down as:

Reserves range £k
Cost of unforeseen emergencies 1.5
Small contingency fund for unforeseen operational costs 0.5
All of our income streams temporarily cease 2.0
Minimum level 4.0
Range 5.0
Maximum level 9.0

The target range is set at five thousand pounds above the minimum level.

The Board of Trustees consider that this target range provides sufficient flexibility in the context of operational requirements and for an organisation of our size and complexity.

At year end the charity had designated unrestricted funds of £11,106 and reserves of £4,719 with no restricted funds. The reserves held are inline with our target range.

The Trustees have a duty to apply charitable funds within a reasonable period of time for the benefit of the people we serve therefore our reserves levels and balances held in designated funds are monitored as part of monthly financial reporting with regular reports provided to the Board of Trustees. The balances held in designated funds are reviewed to determine whether these funds are likely to be committed in the near future and the extent to which there is a continuing need identified for any particular designated fund(s). Any inactive funds will be closed and the funds transferred to reserves.

Charity Trustees

Chris Mountain Peter Newman Paul Popiel (re-appointed June 2024) Dave Rawlings* Jon Rogers Andy Sloper Chris Wood (re-appointed June 2024)

*Chair of the Board of Trustees

Charity Number

1177939

Principal Address Bristol Royal Infirmary Upper Maudlin Street Bristol BS2 8HW

Independent Examiner

Mrs Laura Parslow ACA MAAT

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Signed on behalf of the Trustees on 22[nd] June 2025:

………………………………….. D J Rawlings Chair

…………………………………..

P M Popiel Secretary

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees

I report to the Trustees on my examination of the accounts of Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service for the year ended 31[st] January 2025.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the Charity's Trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

………………………………….. Mrs L J Parslow ACA MAAT Independent Examiner

4[th] June 2025

……………………………… Date

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Receipts and Payments Account for the Year Ended 31[st] January 2025

Receipts
Donations
Fundraising
Sponsorship
Gift Aid
Interest received
Membership subscriptions
Payments
Telephone and internet charges
Outside broadcast costs
Third party programming costs
Printing, postage and stationery
Repairs, renewals and equipment
Insurance
Publicity and advertising
Conferences
Subscriptions, licences and website
70thanniversary event
Fundraising costs and fees
Merchant and auction fees
Trustees' meetings and AGM costs
Net of Receipts / (Payments)
Total Fund Brought Forward
Total Fund Carried Forward		 Note
1
2
3		 2025
Unrestricted
Funds
£
893
2,535
200
698
174
438		 2025
Unrestricted
Funds
£
893
2,535
200
698
174
438		 2024
Unrestricted
Funds
£
228
2,426
-
554
135
425		 2024
Unrestricted
Funds
£
228
2,426
-
554
135
425
4,938
£
969
120
350
72
2,742
524
372
180
1,168
-
-
6
-		 3,768
£
843
187
300
-
717
487
-
-
822
550
13
3
88
6,503 4,010
(1,565) (242)
17,390 17,632
15,825 17,390

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Statement of Assets and Liabilities as at 31[st] January 2025

Cash Funds
Lloyds - Treasurer's Account 1
Lloyds - Treasurer's Account 2
Lloyds - Savings Account
Santander
PayPal
Liabilities
Creditors falling due within one year
Net Assets
Funds
Restricted funds
Unrestricted funds		 Note
4		 2025
£
249
1
5,817
9,779
154		 2024
£
495
14
8,235
8,491
155
16,001
176		 17,390
-
15,825 17,390
-
15,825		 -
17,390
15,825 17,390

The Trustees confirm, in accordance with the Charitable Incorporated Organisations (General) Regulations 2012, that at year end Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service did not have any outstanding guarantees to third parties nor any debts secured on its assets.

All funds held at year end are unrestricted and available to be applied in furtherance of Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service’s charitable objectives at the discretion of the Trustees.

Assets retained for Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service’s own use

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Signed on behalf of the Trustees on 22[nd] June 2025:

………………………………….. D J Rawlings Chair

………………………………….. J Rogers ATT(Fellow) FMAAT Treasurer

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

Notes to the Accounts for the Year Ended 31[st] January 2025

1. Donations
GoFundMe Certified Charity Campaigns
Individuals and friends of BHBS
Mark Hoskins
70thanniversary event
Smile Publishing Ltd
2. Fundraising
Bucket collections at Sainsbury's, Emersons Green
Bucket collections at Tesco, Brislington
SmileAmazon

3. 70th anniversary event

Ticket sales
Venue costs		 2025
£
29
19
45
-
800		 2024
£
-
31
25
172
-
893 228
2025
£
591
1,944
-		 2024
£
-
2,405
21
2,535 2,426
2025
£
-
-		 2024
£
(700)
1,250
- 550

Donations were received in connection with this event totalling £172 (see Note 1), therefore the actual cost of holding the 70[th] anniversary event was £378.

4. Liabilities: Amounts falling due within one
year
Publicity and advertising		 2025
£
176		 2024
£
-

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Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service Trustees’ Report & Accounts 2025

5. Trustees’ expenses

No expenses were paid to any of the Trustees during the year, except to reimburse them for purchases made on behalf of the charity.

6. Accounting policies

Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation and, as such, is governed by the Charities Act 2011. As it has gross income which does not exceed £250,000 per annum, section 133 of that Act entitles the charity to present a Receipts and Payments Account and a Statement of Assets and Liabilities. Accordingly, equipment purchases are not capitalised and depreciated. The full cost appears in the accounts for the year in which the equipment was purchased.

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