Our malehealth website recognised again

Jim Pollard, editor of the Forum's malehealth.co.uk website made the shortlist for the Patients' Association first ever award for health journalist of the year.

Along with Linda Summerhayes from the Edinburgh Evening News, Jim was runner-up to the winner Daily Telegraph freelancer Barbara Lantin when the awards were presented by Lynn Faulds Wood at a ceremony in London last week.

Noting that men's health was 'often neglected', the judges said: 'Jim met all the things we were looking for. The quality of writing was excellent, his understanding of the issues was clear, his empathy above average. he showed that he knows his readers and understands how to communicate with them. Sometimes writing "sensitively" is not the best way to communicate challenging health issues.'

MHF CEO Peter Baker said: 'Jim's nomination is a sign of the quality of the material on malehealth despite the low-budget on which we run the site. I commend it to all members and supporters of the Forum's work and hope you'll recommend it to your friends and colleagues too. It is particularly important to sign up for the free websites newsletter which keeps you up to date with this, the main MHF site, as well as malehealth. Only through increasing the sites hits can we boost its income.'

Malehealth has been highly commended by the BMA and was Royal Society of Medicine website of the Year in 2004 but this is the first-time an individual contributor has been recognised.

The judges were broadcaster and campaigner Claire Rayner; Director of Communications for the Patients Association Katherine Murphy; and Anne-Toni Rodgers from category sponsor, Baxter Healthcare.