Charlotte Smith
Charlotte Smith focuses on practical, service-led health and lifestyle journalism, translating medical and nutrition advice into simple changes readers can make in everyday life. She works as a health and lifestyle content editor within the Reach plc group, contributing health, wellbeing and shopping coverage to the Daily Express and sister titles. Her recent work highlights low-cost foods, widely available supplements and NHS-focused advice rather than niche wellness trends.
Diet-led health advice and longevity coverage
Much of Smith’s recent reporting explains how everyday foods affect long-term health outcomes such as heart health, bone strength, brain function and lifespan. In a piece on a 49p “superfood” snack, she links a common, inexpensive item to better heart, bone and brain health while showing readers how to use it to boost calcium intake without relying on dairy. She also writes broader guides, such as a feature on seven key nutrition tips to support a longer life, where she relays an expert’s advice on balanced meals, sufficient calcium and other core habits for healthy ageing. Across these stories she foregrounds specific nutrients, explains why they matter and uses expert commentary to anchor claims about disease risk, resilience and recovery. The emphasis stays on simple, realistic dietary shifts that a general audience can adopt quickly, rather than complex regimes.
Cost-conscious wellbeing and shopping angles
Smith consistently connects wellbeing coverage with value for money, reflecting a brief that combines health, lifestyle and shopping news. Her author descriptions across Reach titles note that she brings readers lifestyle, health and shopping stories with a particular interest in wellbeing and cost-saving tips. The 49p snack article illustrates this approach, framing a budget-friendly item as a way to strengthen key organs and improve nutrient intake on a tight budget. More generally, her remit includes shopping deals, weight loss tips, wellbeing “hacks” and foods that promise tangible health gains, positioning products in terms of both benefits and price. She writes with a clear consumer focus, drawing lines between supermarket purchases, high-street products and their potential impact on everyday health and comfort.
NHS access, expert voices and everyday conditions
Beyond food and shopping, Smith covers practical questions about accessing healthcare and managing common conditions within the NHS. Her reporting includes pieces built around NHS general practitioners and television doctors who explain how patients can navigate appointments and ease pressure on overstretched services. She also reports on research around infections such as Covid-19, highlighting supplements and vitamins that studies associate with reduced severity or hospitalisation risk as UK case numbers rise. These articles blend public-health updates with straightforward guidance on what readers can discuss with clinicians or add to their routines, keeping the focus on mainstream, evidence-based options. She tends to structure such stories around clear takeaways, spelling out what experts advise and who stands to benefit, while avoiding speculative or fringe treatments.
Role across Reach titles and audience focus
Smith works across multiple Reach brands, with bylines and author biographies on national and regional titles that mirror her Daily Express brief in health, lifestyle and shopping. Her role as a health and lifestyle content editor is reflected in her social media profile, which positions her within Reach plc’s central lifestyle operation. Across outlets she maintains a consistent focus on wellbeing shortcuts, cost-saving ideas and accessible health information, tailoring stories to readers who want quick, actionable guidance rather than in-depth medical analysis. The through-line is a service mindset: identify an everyday problem, consult experts or research, and present a simple set of steps, products or habits that can improve how readers feel and function.
4 more health journalists.
Alex Storey
Alex Storey is a journalist at LBC whose work is driven by specific cases that test professional conduct and accountability in health and the public sector. He covers health as his main beat, focusing on the point where individual decisions by clinicians or officials meet public trust in institutions. His reporting is incident-first and case-led, using concrete episodes to show how rules, ethics and policy work in real life. Recent pieces include a disciplinary case where a nurse was struck off after linking a patient’s cancer to Covid jabs, and coverage of civil servants being “paid to play Grand Theft Auto” as “lived experience” training. Across these stories, he examines how professionals, regulators and officials explain their decisions, and what that reveals about trust, responsibility and the standards expected of people in positions of authority.
Alexandra Thompson
Alexandra Thompson is an assistant news editor focused on health who treats health claims as hypotheses to be tested rather than messages to be repeated. She works at New Scientist, combining editing with frontline reporting on ageing brains, cognitive health, chronic illness, contested treatments and infectious disease. Her beat centres on how neuroscience and psychology intersect with everyday health choices and on how scientific findings translate into real-world outcomes for people living with illness. She examines lifestyle advice, rehabilitation programmes and outbreak guidance against current evidence, clarifying risk without overstating it and giving space to controversy without sensationalising it. Alongside written news she appears in audio and video formats, bringing the same clear, news-driven approach to live discussions and helping shape the daily health agenda while keeping a tight focus on evidence and impact.
Alice Wilkinson
Alice Wilkinson investigates how everyday habits, products and routines shape sleep and long-term wellbeing, using test-driven health features to separate hype from real benefit. She holds a senior role on The Telegraph’s health features team, writing and shaping consumer-focused coverage that blends personal trial with clear expert evidence. Her core beat is sleep as a practical, solvable part of daily life, from detailed comparisons of magnesium supplements to service pieces on how sleeping position affects health over time. She treats supplements as a crowded, over-claimed market that demands careful testing and clear-eyed reporting. Alongside long-form features she writes weekly health desk dispatches on sleep, stress and concentration. Across her work she combines substantial self-testing, specialist insight and plain, unfussy prose to give readers measurable, realistic changes they can make.
Ally Head
Ally Head connects performance-focused fitness reporting with women’s health, sustainability and relationships, using her own endurance training and health history to stress-test trends against expert guidance. She is Senior Health, Sustainability and Relationships Editor at Marie Claire UK, where she shapes the health agenda across training, wellbeing and conscious living and writes and commissions news, topical features and SEO-led long-form pieces. A ten-time marathoner and Boston-qualifying runner, she focuses on structured, realistic training plans, strength and conditioning for women who run, and performance longevity. Her women’s health work centres on hormones, chronic conditions and fact versus fiction wellness claims. She also covers sustainability as conscious living and relationships, mental resilience and lifestyle features, favouring plain language, lived experience, specialist commentary and clear, repeatable routines. She has previously produced similar content for Women’s Health, Stylist, Glamour and Grazia.