We are thrilled to report that CareSound Radio presenter Georgie Williams has won another national award!
At the recent Hospital Broadcasting Awards ceremony in Leicestershire, Georgie was announced as the winner of the inaugural “Innovation Across Hospital Radio” award. Her story prompted an unprecedented standing ovation from around 200 delegates attending the ceremony.
Georgie was born with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She has no use of her legs and right arm and limited use of her left arm. She is unable to talk and uses a communication aid attached to her wheelchair.
Georgie joined CareSound Radio as a ward visitor and request collector in 2018. She attended two evenings per week and, with her communication aid primed with conversation and questions, she and her assistant would go into the hospital wards at Perth Royal Infirmary, chat to patients and collect requests for songs to be played on that evening’s show. Invariably she charmed the patients and returned to the studio with masses of requests which she introduced on-air.
When ward visiting became impossible during lock-down, she began making radio programmes from home – recording introductions and chat about songs, then sending them to other presenters to insert the music and complete the radio programme.
Following the pandemic, with access to hospital wards severely restricted, Georgie now co-hosts the Tuesday request show for local care homes. After obtaining approximately 20 requests the previous day by email, she spends 10 hours preparing the introductions and chat on her communication aid before visiting the studio the following afternoon and presenting the programme live.
The listeners love Georgie’s enthusiasm and, at their request, she has made a one-hour programme discussing her disability, how it affects her, how others react to her and how we can all do more for those with disabilities.
In 2023 she suggested then organised and took part in an all day outside broadcast to support the Parkinson’s Society which was a huge success.
With her communication device all miked-up, her co-presenter counts her down and she inserts her introduction to the song. Her intros have become more and more confident as time goes on. In recent months she has developed these links into a style that allows her to have a conversation with her co-host and the whole two-hour programme is a happy and enthusiastic one.
Managing Georgie’s input is very time consuming for her and to a lesser extent others for the station, however she is innovative, positive and enthusiastic and her contribution so worthwhile that it has become one of the main features of our programming.
It is no surprise that as a result Georgie is the current NHS Scotland Volunteer Of The Year.