Sarah Scott
Sarah Scott uses patient stories and frontline perspectives to make health issues concrete, with a particular focus on screening, early diagnosis and everyday care within the health system. She is deputy editor at Belfast Live and continues to report, combining general news experience with a health-led, human interest approach to coverage.
Cancer screening and early diagnosis
A recurring thread in Scott’s work is the life-or-death impact of cancer screening programmes and the consequences when people miss or are denied tests. In a feature built around a woman whose cancer was only picked up because she attended a screening invitation, she uses the subject’s testimony to underline that the disease “would not have been detected” if the test had been missed, framing screening as a critical safety net rather than a routine appointment. She reports on a Co Down woman urging others not to ignore smear test invitations, again anchoring the story in a personal account to demonstrate how cervical screening can catch problems before they become advanced. Scott also highlights structural gaps in provision, telling the story of a woman who survived bowel cancer thanks to screening elsewhere and contrasting that with Northern Ireland’s narrower age range for bowel screening, which currently covers people aged 60 to 74. Around these individual narratives she profiles organisations offering breast screening, showing how Action Cancer’s services expand access and encouraging eligible people to book appointments rather than delay. She complements these pieces with coverage of the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, explaining how tracking cancer cases, improving routes to earlier diagnosis and preparing data for research sit behind public screening programmes and policy debates.
Patient stories and lived experience
Scott’s health reporting consistently centres the lived experience of patients and families rather than abstract policy discussion. She tells the story of a woman who suffered a severe, life-threatening and life-changing stroke, documenting both the emergency and its long-term impact on daily life to show what recovery and adaptation really mean beyond clinical language. In her cancer screening features she allows interviewees to speak frankly about fear, uncertainty and gratitude, using their words to connect population-level statistics with individual outcomes. Scott also contributes to the “Lives Remembered” strand, working on a piece about Emma Vianzon that draws out the human side of healthcare, and reinforces how illness and care shape memory and identity for patients, families and staff. Across these stories she favours straightforward prose, clear timelines and concrete detail, helping readers see how health events unfold step by step rather than in hindsight.
Health services, workforce and innovation
Beyond individual cases, Scott devotes attention to the people and systems that deliver care. In the Lives Remembered coverage she highlights nurses as the backbone of hospitals, health services and community clinics, framing them as the often unseen workforce behind every treatment and recovery story. She reports on the work inside the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, showing how roles such as data collection, analysis and review of cancer care contribute to improved pathways and better-informed decisions. Her feature on a Queen’s University lecturer who uses dance to tell the stories of breastfeeding mothers in Northern Ireland bridges clinical subjects and creative practice, presenting breastfeeding not only as a health issue but as a lived narrative that can be communicated through performance. These pieces show an interest in how research, data and innovation connect back to everyday experiences in clinics, wards and homes, and how staff at different levels of the system shape outcomes for patients.
Role in the Belfast Live newsroom
Scott’s editorial role sits alongside a substantial reporting workload. She began with Belfast Live as one of its original live news reporters, covering breaking stories across the patch as the site established itself. Her professional profile describes a general news brief that has included court and inquest coverage, council stories, live events and human interest pieces, giving her a wide base from which to approach health topics with an eye for both policy and people. She is now deputy editor, combining newsroom leadership with ongoing on-the-ground reporting. Her output spans written features, video collaborations and social-first storytelling, as seen in stroke and Lives Remembered pieces produced with colleagues and shared across Belfast Live’s channels. Taken together, her track record shows a journalist who brings the instincts of a live news reporter to health coverage, using clear, accessible narratives to connect personal experiences of illness and care with the systems and services that surround them.
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.