I’m Dan Gluckman, an editor in Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Learning and I look after the Knowledge and Learning , and websites.
Later this month the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ will be changing the way we cover the topic of health onlineΒ and closing the current .
This doesn’t affect the which will continue to publish news and features about health, but applies to pages that currently sit under the url .
At present the Health website covers a broad and diverse range of subjects such as medical conditions, healthy living and child development.
When the site launched over a decade ago there were few sources of comprehensive, medically checked health information online.
However, things are now different and we want to avoid duplication with other online content providers, in particular the site which provides information and advice on health conditions.
Therefore from now on we intend to play to our strengths. We want to maximise the impact of our output already on TV, radio and online by channelling our audience's natural curiosity about health topics into finding out more about the science of what is happening inside their bodies.
We’ll do this as part of the new which will bring together over 100 existing Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ websites, from to , into a single, consistent user experience.
The product has already featured and you’ll be hearing more about it here and elsewhere over the coming months.
Until the Knowledge and Learning product launches some of the pages that cover major health conditions such as and Β will move to our existing .
They will focus on the science behind the conditions with links through to relevant pages on NHS Choices and other organisations for people who want to know about symptoms and treatments or find other information.
Some of our popular tools such as the and will remain for now. We have plans to relaunch them as part of the Knowledge and Learning product in the future alongside new content relating to health topics.
The rest of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Health pages will not disappear (so links to the pages will not break) but will be replaced by a page that explains about the closure of the site and a link through to NHS Choices.
Although Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Health has been a useful service for many years I’m confident that the information that our audiences want will still be available online and we will point them towards it.
I would be interested to hear your comment.
Update October 2014: This month, we are removing the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Health Pregnancy Calendar from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ website. If you are interested in this type of content, there are other medically checked resources available online.
Dan Gluckman is an editor in Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Learning.