Hospital Broadcasting Association
The Hospital Broadcasting Association (HBA) supports the 210 or so independent hospital broadcasting organisations serving hospitals, hospices and nursing homes in the UK. The vast majority of these organisations provide hospital radio services through a variety of broadcast medium as well as a few hospital television services. HBA's patron is the former Head of Presentation at BBC Radio 2, Alan Dedicoat, who before joining the BBC started his radio life in the hospital radio "trade". Function. Advice and guidance. HBA provides advice and guidance to the management of the stations on all aspects of running a  hospital broadcasting organisation. This is available via its website, its members' magazine, at national conferences, regional events and in response to specific enquiries. This expertise is vital to the stations, as many of a station's members will not have had previous experience in either broadcasting, running or managing an organisation. The HBA also provides regular training events for those involved with the associations member stations; attracting guest speakers who have a wealth of professional experience in radio broadcasting and interview techniques, radio technology or the finer points of computer based broadcasting software. In addition HBA offers training and support  on numerous administration elements of managing a charity. National representation. HBA represents hospital broadcasting at a national level, engaging with appropriate national organisations such as: National Hospital Radio Awards. The HBA stages the National Hospital Radio Awards annually to encourage volunteers to produce better programmes, recognising volunteers within the HBA and its member stations that deserve recognition for going the extra mile in their work. The awards are presented at the HBA Annual National Conference held in the Spring of each year, the most recent event was held in Newcastle in March 2015. Previous National Hospital Radio Awards, such as  Bristol 2014, and proceeding Awards are recorded and uploaded to YouTube for association members and the general public to see in full. Structure. Legal status. The HBA is a company limited by guarantee (number 2750147) and is registered as a charity (number 1015501) with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Its official name is the National Association of Hospital Broadcasting Organisations, but adopted Hospital Broadcasting Association as its working name in the 1990s.