Ethan Ennals

Ennals showed his ability to set the health news agenda this year with a series of revelatory stories.

Over the past 12 months, he has written more than a dozen articles on the controversial use of physician associates (PAs) in the NHS, as part of The Mail on Sunday’s Rein in The Physician Associates campaign.

When Ennals launched the campaign, these so-called ‘cut-price medics’ were a niche topic, known by few outside the medical world.

But it wasn’t long before his stories were referenced in the House of Commons by the Health Secretary as he announced a major safety review of the rollout of PAs.

Ennals was also responsible for a number of other NHS exclusives over the past year.

His articles have informed patients, healthcare workers and politicians about serious issues inside the NHS. Above all, his work places ordinary individuals at the heart of the story.

The first exclusive demonstrates the danger at the centre of the PA scandal.

After writing several scoops revealing how PAs were being asked to carry out complex procedures, Ennals was contacted by the mother of a woman who died following a mistake made by a PA.

The fact that Catherine chose to reach out to Ennals shows that he is regarded as a trusted voice, capable of telling difficult and emotional personal tales.

The story also included an unprecedented dossier of 400 reports from worried NHS doctors.

This demonstrates Ennals is regarded by healthcare workers as a go-to medical journalist, who is capable of writing groundbreaking, but scientifically accurate, stories. The second PA story is one of the most impactful of Ennals’ career.

A months-long Freedom of Information investigation revealed that hospitals were defying NHS rules and allowing PAs to cover doctors’ shifts on wards filled with pregnant women and stroke victims.

His dogged work to uncover this scandal resulted in NHS England opening an investigation into the dangerous practice.

In November, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was concerned about reports of PAs ‘substituting for doctors’, a clear reference to Ennals’ own revelations. After a short MoS article about kidney disease sparked a deluge of readers' letters, Ennals dug into why so few patients are warned they are at-risk of the life-threatening condition – or even told they have it.

It’s a disease which rarely appears in the media, largely due to its complexity.

But, in this investigation, Ennals laid bare the danger to the NHS posed by rising cases, as well as the out-of-date attitudes held by GPs that are making the crisis worse.

Later that year, the NHS launched a pilot scheme to test thousands of people at their workplace for the early signs of the disease. This is a prime example of Ennals’ ability to tap into the zeitgeist of the health world. However, what makes him most proud is that the article helped readers find out their own kidney disease risk, ultimately improving their lives.