Hospital Radio exists to inform, entertain and befriend hospital patients by providing a personal radio service especially for these patients.

Just one of over 500 such stations throughout the UK, Tayside Hospital Broadcasting Group is a registered charity, staffed entirely by a small group of dedicated volunteers and funded by grants and donations from local organisations and the people of Dundee.

The radio service is branded "Bridge fm" and serves patients, visitors and staff in Ninewells, Royal Victoria and Ashludie hospitals, and the Carseview Centre at Ninewells.

It can be heard 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on the bedside radio headsets in most wards, and around the hospitals on normal radios on 87.7 MHz.

The service boasts several "firsts":

• It is the oldest such service in Scotland, established in 1952 by members of the voluntary service organisation Toc-H, and believed to be the third-oldest in the UK;
• In 1967, made broadcasting history by introducing the first ever television service for hospitals.  Unfortunately, mainly because of high costs, few television programmes were ever transmitted;
• It was one of the very first hospital radio stations to be issued with a FM broadcasting licence;
• It is also one of the first such stations to broadcast on digital radio, providing part of Score Digital's community access service for Dundee and Perth, since late 2002.

The Tayside Hospital Broadcasting Group was formed in 2001 by the merger of two hospital radio stations and broadcasts from its modern studio complex at Ninewells Hospital, to the west of Dundee.

Tayside Hospital Broadcasting Group transmits its service under the name "Bridge fm".

The core of the broadcasting is directly aimed at hospital patients, and volunteers visit each ward regularly to talk to patients and collect requests for the request programmes broadcast live each evening.

Live news broadcasts keep listeners up-to-date with current events, football commentary is transmitted live from Dens and Tannadice Parks.  As well as requests, the music programmes cover a wide range of tastes, from evergreen favourites, current chart to Scottish and Classical music.

The broadcasts reach a wide audience, comprising the following potential:

• Hospital bed-side: totalling 1500 in-patients on any day, in over 40 wards;
• Out-patient areas in Ninewells (excluding A&E): potentially over 17,000 monthly, or 1000 on any given weekday;
• Hospital staff: around 9000 on any given day at peak times, 09:00 - 17:00;
• Patients' visitors: up to 4000 at daily peak times, 18:00 - 20:00;
• Others in the hospital vicinity, for example visitors listening in their cars;
• Plus digital radio listeners: 375,000 potential via broadcast to Tayside and NE Fife, once the service is fully launched.