Your smartphone or tablet as a wireless hotspot When no Wi-Fi connection is available for your laptop, you can use the 3G or 4G connection of your smartphone or tablet to surf the Internet. Try Netfit and AgeUK to top up your fitness levels. To get the best medical advice online, go to NetDoctor and .uk. Senior citizens will like AgeUK’s Keeping Fit pages ( health-wellbeing/keeping-fit) while the more serious get-fitters should turn to Netfit () for advice on that elusive six-pack.
One aspect of NHS Choices that we do like is the Get Fit for Free section ( fitness/Pages/free-fitness.aspx) with a host of tips.
The British Heart Foundation site ( ) has information about the best ways to prevent heart disease (healthy eating, keeping active, advice on smoking, alcohol, stress, etc.) and you can support the BHF’s research on 6 February by wearing red and donating to the cause. It remains a top site except for the ubiquitous ads. We’ve regularly reviewed NetDoctor () with its Health A-Z, healthy living, “ask the doctor” and much more. Its symptom checker is excellent and there are sections on wellbeing and medicines, together with active forums and regularly updated patient information and medicine leaflets. We did like the “best” ranked site, .uk (). However, this looks too populist in content for our taste. In 2014 the most popular site was What Doctors Don’t Tell You (). The Website of the Year Awards () cover a range of topics, including health. The Self Care Forum ( is backed by the NHS and is primarily aimed at medical professionals but there are useful fact sheets. One major change is that NHS Direct also allowed you to call a local-rate number and speak to a qualified nurse (24/7), whereas NHS Choices allows a 111 call manned by non-qualified staff. For advice about health, one of our favourite sites has been NHS Direct ( This was closed back in March 2014 and has been replaced by NHS Choices (). The NHS’s online presence and other initiatives.
Online tips to staying healthy With the NHS under pressure and with visits to GPs becoming more and more difficult, we look at websites that can give you advice on staying healthy. Your newsletter online Quickly read, print, share our advice