Olga Norford
Olga Norford uses the health beat at the Milton Keynes Citizen to turn official guidance and local developments into clear, usable information for local readers. Her reporting sits where public health, everyday family decisions and community safety meet, anchoring abstract policy in concrete implications for residents. She has a long association with the paper and previously served as its editor between 2008 and 2019, which gives her health coverage a strong sense of how it fits into the wider news agenda. Alongside health and wellness, she maintains a broad local brief that includes community events, public order incidents and selective business updates.
Vaccination reminders after disease outbreaks
Norford’s health coverage is built around vaccination campaigns and disease prevention, presented as straightforward service information for families. In her piece on measles jabs for parents in Milton Keynes following an earlier outbreak, she ties a specific disease incident to the ongoing need for immunisation, turning a clinical issue into a practical reminder for carers.
She focuses on who needs to act, why now, and how to access the vaccine, keeping the emphasis on clear next steps rather than technical detail.
This approach runs through her health and wellness writing more broadly, where she returns to themes of eligibility, timing and access. Rather than treating vaccines and public health alerts as one-off news events, she uses them to reinforce routine protective behaviours, particularly for children and other at‑risk groups.
The tone is direct and explanatory, with an emphasis on the benefits of staying up to date with recommended jabs and screenings.
Health policy, services and official guidance
Norford frequently builds stories from announcements by care boards, government bodies and health services, using official statements as the backbone of her reporting.
She focuses on translating policy language and press release detail into simple lists of who is affected, what changes, and where people should go for help or treatment. Coverage of health and wellness is framed as a guide to navigating services, rather than commentary on the institutions themselves.
Her articles often pick up on changes to local provision, seasonal campaigns and targeted initiatives, explaining how they intersect with everyday life for residents. That can include outlining the availability of free vaccinations, clarifying which age groups or clinical conditions qualify, and pointing readers towards booking routes or contact points for further information. The reporting is tightly aligned with official guidance, but she retains editorial control by highlighting the elements most relevant to households and carers.
Community news, incidents and local appeals
Alongside her health work, Norford covers general local news, giving her a broader view of the community context in which health stories land. Her portfolio includes pieces on events and activities, as well as business updates when they carry clear implications for residents or the local economy. This range allows her to connect health topics to everyday civic life, showing how services, policies and incidents sit within a wider pattern of community experience.
She also reports on public order incidents and policing appeals, handling sensitive matters with a factual, detail‑driven style. In coverage of a case where police released CCTV images of two men with vital information about a public order incident in Milton Keynes, she focuses on the chronology, the request from authorities and the information the public needs to assist. This work reinforces her role as a conduit between official institutions and the community, whether the subject is vaccination, safety or local disruption.
Across health, community and incident reporting, Norford’s distinguishing trait is a consistent service orientation: every story is geared towards what residents should know and do next.
4 more health journalists.
Alan Booth
Alan Booth is distinctive for linking infectious disease, laboratory research and emerging health technologies rather than treating them as separate beats. He is a senior editor at Labmate-Online, where he covers outbreaks, vaccines, drug development, antimicrobial resistance, gene therapies and laboratory innovation. His reporting has examined tuberculosis, measles, cholera, influenza and malaria, including a major tuberculosis outbreak, vaccine and drug advances, and a malaria vaccine designed to block mosquito transmission. He has also written about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, new gene therapy centres and SinS Brighton 2025. Booth reports news, research updates, interviews and event coverage for a broad laboratory audience. He presents LabMatePod, discussing AMR, emerging pathogens, public health responses and scientific history. Across articles, interviews and podcasts, he connects laboratory findings with health policy and technology using clear, well-researched science communication.
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.