Bedrock Books & Request Collecting
One of the most important tasks in Hospital Radio is an off-air activities – Ward Visiting.
We’re looking for a team of volunteers who enjoy meeting people and would like to spend time chatting to patients.
Our Ward Visitors provide an important service and give that all important human interaction.
Volunteers Wanted:
We need a small team of volunteers to operate the Bedrock Books trolley.
The team will be visiting the wards at Queen’s Hospital, talking to patients and staff
Duties include selling books to patients, collecting song requests and handing out free magazines.
Books Days: Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday
According to a BBC News report, that surveyed NHS nurses, 40% of patients receive No Visitors
Bedrock Books
In January 2010, we started Bedrock BOOKS, which visits the wards at Queen’s Hospital throughout the week, providing a secondary form of entertainment to compliment our radio service.
During the pandemic, our service took a hiatus to protect patients and our volunteers.
We are pleased to have restarted this much missed service early 2025.
(Note: Bedrock Books is not associated with the ‘Mobile Library’ run by the hospital charity division that started recently)
How Bedrock Books Works.
We generally stock softback books, our books donated by the public, our volunteers check the books to ensure they are in good condition, all book covers are cleaned with antibacterial wipes before joining our ‘library’ stockpile.
A very limited stock of books is maintained, these are usually narrowed down to the most requested genera’s, For instance the most popular choices for ladies are romance & thrillers (Mills & Boon, Danielle Steel, 50 Shades),
whereas men tend to enjoy detective & sci-fi (Lee Child, James Patterson, Ian Fleming).
Our Bedrock Books volunteers visit the wards a during a weekday with our distinctive green Bedrock Books trolley with four shelves full of books for patients to browse.
There are no limits to how many books you want to read, We welcome a suggested donation of £1.00 per book,
but you are welcome to donate more (we accept cash & card – but are unable to provide change).
Ask our team for a copy of our free Bedrock Radio magazine, that has a number of quizzes to keep you occupied during your stay in hospital.
If you finish with the book during your stay, feel free to donate it back to Bedrock Books by dropping it off to our studio on the first floor before you leave – Otherwise, it is yours to keep.
Request Collecting.
Volunteers on ward visiting across the various hospitals also play a part in keeping wards keep tuned into Bedrock Radio, they check Ward Radios, ensuring they are working, turned and tuned into Bedrock Radio, while also taking your song requests from the ward.
Volunteer With Bedrock Books
Some things to note:
- It helps if you enjoy talking to people. You will be working in minimum teams of two, plus interacting with patients and staff.
- Our mobile book service involves moving our wheeled green book trolley around. This can average 120kg (We have a loading limit to avoid reaching the full capacity 200KG).
- All Volunteers are required to undertake a DBS & Occupational Health check, we work with BHR Hospitals Volunteer Services to complete these checks.
- Volunteers of Bedrock Books are deemed as 'Associate Members' of our Charity; Bedrock Radio, this is a non-voting level of membership. There are no membership fees on Bedrock Books.
- You will not be involved in any on-air broadcasting on Bedrock Radio. (If you wish to get involved on-air you'll need Full Membership)
- Once you complete the application form, you will be invited in for an interview to talk about your role within Bedrock Books.
- We will give you an induction and training on the equipment you'll be using. There is also a group chat for Bedrock Books Volunteers to pass messages and manage the service.