Hanna Geissler
Hanna Geissler is Health Editor at the Daily Express, focusing on health news in the UK with an emphasis on NHS care, medical research and clear, expert-led advice on everyday health decisions. Her coverage links system-level stories with practical guidance, moving between hospital services, clinical breakthroughs and nutrition features that spell out what new information means for patients and readers. Since taking on the health editor role in 2021, she has been a central figure in the masthead’s health agenda and campaigns.
NHS care and health system reporting
Geissler’s core beat is the workings and pressures of the NHS, which she covers as a health news editor rather than a lifestyle columnist. Her author bio sets her remit as health news in the UK, particularly the NHS and the latest medical research, and her recent work reflects that focus. She treats hospitals, community services and mental health provision as news subjects, anchoring health coverage in how the system delivers care.
One example is her story on England’s first 24/7 NHS neighbourhood mental health centre, profiling the Barnsley Street Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre as a round-the-clock service embedded in the community. That piece highlights a new model of continuous support within the NHS, positioning mental health as a frontline service rather than a specialist add‑on. The framing shows her interest in how service design and opening hours change the experience of care, not just in announcing new facilities.
Medical research and treatment advances
Alongside system coverage, Geissler regularly reports on clinical studies and treatment innovation, with a particular focus on cancer care. In a piece on radiotherapy, she covers research that could speed up treatment for thousands of breast cancer patients, connecting technical changes in radiotherapy delivery to concrete numbers of people who might benefit. The article cites study author Dr Anna Kirby of The Institute of Cancer Research, showing her reliance on named specialists to explain findings.
This pattern matches the way her author bio defines her beat as the latest medical research, suggesting a role translating complex science into patient-facing news. Her reporting on trials and new protocols tends to foreground what will change for patients in timing, side effects or access, rather than staying at the level of academic results. That combination of researcher voices and patient impact is a consistent thread in her coverage of treatment advances.
Diet, lifestyle and chronic disease advice
Geissler also writes service features on diet, lifestyle and chronic conditions, often built around specialists giving readers practical steps. In a health piece shaped around a diabetes dietitian, she focuses on one action to take after every meal to help keep blood sugar under control, distilling disease management into a simple habit based on expert guidance. The format is typical of her service journalism, where a clinical or nutrition authority anchors the advice.
Her front-page story on a “hidden” danger of salt in the diet takes the same approach, turning a familiar ingredient into a risk narrative and warning readers about less obvious ways excessive salt intake can damage health. In another article on “fibremaxxing”, she reports on a new health trend amid evidence that 96% of people in the UK are not meeting crucial fibre targets, and takes tips from specialists on how to increase intake. Across these pieces, she connects population-level data on diet shortfalls with clear behavioural recommendations, making public-health messaging more concrete.
Campaigns on assisted dying and end-of-life care
Beyond day-to-day coverage, Geissler is closely involved in the Daily Express’s Give Us Our Last Rights campaign on assisted dying. As health editor, she has spoken publicly about the campaign and its aims, framing it as an example of journalism shaping debate on end-of-life choices. Her role places a health and patient-care lens on an issue that also crosses politics, law and ethics, keeping the focus on how policy affects people’s final months.
The campaign has been recognised with a major prize at the British Journalism Awards, underscoring its impact and the prominence of assisted dying in the paper’s health coverage. Geissler’s association with this work marks her out as an editor who engages with long-running, values-driven initiatives, not only reactive news. It also shows that her beat extends to contested areas of healthcare policy, including how and when patients should be allowed to choose the manner of their death.
Across NHS reporting, medical research, diet and chronic disease features, and campaign work on assisted dying, Geissler operates at the intersection of health system performance and individual decision-making. She writes as both a health and science journalist and a health editor, a dual role she uses to push for stories that combine strong evidence with clear relevance for patients and readers. The result is a body of work that treats health as a public service, a field of scientific progress and a set of everyday choices, often within the same section of the paper.
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.