Elsevier is to close its three of its UK healthcare magazines with the expected loss of 32 jobs.
Weekly titles Doctor, Hospital Doctor and Update are closing. A fourth title, Practice Nurse will be shifted into another part of the business.
Press Gazette understands that all 32 staff based at the Reed Business Information building in Sutton are being made redundant.
Practice Nurse is expected to be transferred across to a sister company, the Medicine Publishing Group, based in Elsevier’s Oxford office.
Doctor is a weekly newspaper for GPs and is the only one to publish separate editions for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. Hospital Doctor is a weekly tabloid newspaper for doctors in all grades and specialities.
An internal memo to staff at Elsevier said of the closure: ‘Elsevier Health Sciences UK/NL has undertaken a review of its business and title portfolio and has come to the conclusion that going forward, the opportunities in the UK physician print magazine market are limited.
‘For that reason we have begun a consultation process with healthcare staff in the Sutton office about the strategic future of the publications. The likely result of this consultation process will be the closure of Doctor, Hospital Doctor and Update magazines. It is proposed that Practice Nurse will be absorbed into Elsevier’s strong nursing publishing programs.”
Correction: A previous version of this article wrongly described the closure of Elsevier’s Healthcare Division.
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