Curing the Hospital Choir

A Llanelli hospital choir set up to celebrate the NHS 70th anniversary is launching a campaign to find their next Musical Director.
The “Hospital Notes” choir was originally set up ahead of the anniversary celebrations in July, with members practising in their lunchtimes in hospital corridors and outside when the weather permitted.
All staff at Prince Philip Hospital were encouraged to take part with attendance from nurses, domestic staff, consultant doctors, managers, associated professional support staff, laboratory staff, secretaries even the chair of the Hywel Dda Health Board.
Sadly due to other commitments the musical director who led the choir on the day is unable to continue in the role and Hospital Notes is now looking for a dynamic, modern, enthusiastic musical director to share their journey, principles and camaraderie
Gemma Brown , choir chairman, said: “Each of us only has a few outstandingly memorable days in our lives, this was the top one for me, I am so proud of what we have achieved in such a short period of time – it’s amazing what can be done. We have received feedback from choir members about camaraderie, a feel good factor in the hospital, improved mental health and reduced sickness levels which have been enlightening.”
Dr Robin Ghosal, Clinical Director at Prince Philip Hospital, added: “This choir has brought together staff from different parts of the Hospital, all singing together, becoming friends and the joy seen on everyone’s faces reflects the feel good factor which we have created. ““This ultimately leads to better treatment of our patients”
The original principles and intentions of the choir were to bring the Hospital together, promote health and wellbeing of staff (and the knock on effect to our patients) and give something back to the health service at special events.
The 70th anniversary celebration day saw the choir performing renditions of “I will Follow Him”, “The Rose”, “Stand by Me”, “Let it Be”, “This is Me” and a particularly emotional rendition of Coldplay’s “Fix You”.
Having sung three times throughout the day, the choir members went back to their jobs and patients and staff still talk about the performances long after the event. Video recordings of the songs have been posted on Facebook with well over 100,000 views to date (51,000 for “fix you” alone). Feedback has been received from all over the world as well as from prospective employees, doctors, and the people of Llanelli.
Since the 5 July, the Hospital Notes choir have been looking forward to singing again, with offers to sing at Thanksgiving events, Charity Balls, Christmas concerts. The choir has also been asked to
perform at a Nursing conference in Cardiff next year and in a 30th anniversary celebration of Prince Philip Hospital in 2020.
Anyone who is interested in taking up the role of Musical Director should contact Gemma Brown at: hospitalnotes@outlook.com