Sarah Ingram
Sarah Ingram connects health topics to everyday life, using plain language to unpack how medical and psychological issues play out in real people’s bodies and relationships. She covers health for Metro and writes as a freelance journalist for national press and agencies, including Metro, the Independent and the Guardian. Alongside health, she also works as an art writer, contributing cultural features when commissioned.
Health features that start from lived experience
Ingram’s health coverage is anchored in specific experiences, using an individual condition or dilemma as an entry point into wider questions about care, risk and the body. At Metro she writes question-led explainers such as her piece on Lazarus syndrome, examining what happens if a person shows signs of life after doctors declare them dead and what that means for medical practice and families. Her reporting stays close to the real-world consequences of clinical decisions, translating complex scenarios into clear, direct prose.
Across outlets she returns to the way health intersects with identity and social expectations. Rather than focusing on technical policy coverage or service updates, she builds features around how people live with labels, diagnoses and fears. This approach lets her write for general audiences while still taking on subjects that sit close to medicine, psychology and ethics.
Body image and the politics of appearance
Ingram writes repeatedly about body image and how cultural norms shape the way people feel about their bodies. At the Independent she has reported on how beauty pageants are changing, including a feature on body positivity in swimwear competitions and how those contests are being reworked to move away from narrow beauty standards. She uses these stories to explore how appearance-based rituals affect self-worth, and how institutions respond when public attitudes to bodies shift.
Her treatment of these subjects is grounded in specific examples rather than broad commentary. Pageants, fashion choices and public events become case studies that let her show how health-adjacent issues such as body confidence, diet culture and ageing play out in practice. The tone is explanatory rather than campaigning, but the choice of subjects shows a steady interest in how social pressures translate into anxiety, shame or acceptance around the body.
Mental health, relationships and everyday life
Mental health is another recurring strand in Ingram’s work, with a focus on how conditions affect intimate relationships and daily routines. For the Independent she has written about how obsessive-compulsive disorder can damage partnerships, including fears of cheating and intrusive thoughts that strain trust. She treats OCD not just as a diagnostic label but as a lived reality that shapes what people can say, do and believe about themselves and others.
These pieces sit at the junction of psychology and lifestyle, showing how symptoms intersect with love, sex and friendship rather than staying within clinical settings. Ingram uses specific fears and scenarios to explain what the condition feels like from the inside, while still keeping enough distance to make the subject accessible to readers who may not share that experience. The result is coverage that treats mental health as part of ordinary life, not a separate specialist topic.
Freelance work across national outlets
Ingram works as a freelance journalist for national press and agencies, filing to multiple desks rather than a single in-house role. Her byline at the Independent spans body positivity, mental health and the emotional fallout of illness, while her Metro work focuses on health explainers grounded in specific conditions and questions. She also describes herself as an art writer, and her professional profiles reflect a mix of cultural and health-focused assignments within the same portfolio.
Working across outlets shapes how she frames stories: individual articles need to stand alone for readers who may not follow her work, so she favours clear headlines, straightforward structures and tightly defined subjects. The consistent thread is an interest in how people navigate their bodies, minds and roles in public, whether that is a patient living with an unsettling diagnosis, a contestant in a changing pageant culture or a partner coping with intrusive thoughts. That focus on lived experience, rather than solely on institutions or policy, distinguishes her from more generic health reporting.
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.