A MARATHON 60-hour live broadcast hit the airwaves at a North-East hospital over the weekend.

Volunteers for Auckland Radio, at Bishop Auckland Hospital, County Durham, began broadcasting to the wards at 9am on Friday.

And the microphone remained switched on throughout the weekend until 9pm last night.

Most of the station's 40 volunteers took it in turns to keep the broadcast going, backed up by people gathering requests from patients on the wards.

Station manager Craig Robinson said there were three reasons for holding the radio marathon.

He said: "One reason is to raise funds to keep the service going, because we are completely self-funded.

"It also helps to raise the profile of the station within both the local community and the hospital.

"It is also a good thing for the patients and a really valuable team-building exercise for the volunteers, because a lot of them don't get to see each other."

The event was sponsored by ISS Mediclean, which provided catering for the radio staff during their marathon stint, and Patientline, which supplies the hospital's radio headsets.

The marathon coincided with the second anniversary of the station's first broadcast at the new Bishop Auckland Hospital.

The station is constantly on the lookout for volunteers. More details are available on the Internet at www.ahr.org.uk