Stacks of healthy information is now just the click of a mouse away for internet users.

Thorpe Bay GP, Dr Haroon Siddique, has spent months gathering information on everything from local support groups for rare conditions to chemists' rotas, and has now compiled 15 pages - with more to come.

He explained: "There are quite a few places where you can go for medical advice on things like coughs and colds, but I noticed it was often very difficult to get information about helplines and support groups in the area."

He started trawling through libraries, searching the postgraduate library at Southend Hospital, gleaning details from newspapers, and noting down useful addresses from his patients, and now has a list of 122 numbers - both in the area and around the country.

He said: "There are often little groups, like a husband and wife who have had a child affected by some medical condition or the other, and set up a group which meets at their home - but it is very difficult to let other people get to know about it."

There are also pages which link up to other information sites around the country just by clicking on an icon, a diary of local fundraising events for health-related charities and lists of hospitals, clinics, chemists and doctors' surgeries - complete with map and opening hours.

All the pages can be printed and kept as hard copy directories.

Dr Siddique is now collecting details of dentists, physiotherapists and opticians.

He said: "I have also included a page for comments and have had some good feedback. People are certainly interested."

Last month the site had more than 300 "hits" and Dr Siddique received 70 e-mail inquiries.

The address of the Dr Siddique's site is www.soshealth.co.uk and there is a link to it on This Is Essex.

To see for yourself, click here

Dr Siddique - set up a web site

Picture: STEVE O'CONNELL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.