Advice from medical experts can now be carried about in the palm of your hand.
PocketDoctor provides detailed information on medical matters accessible from WAP (wireless application protocol) mobile phones, the internet and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Brighton-based Future Platforms has built the system.
The company was commissioned by London-based dot.com Health Amigo, producers of the editorial content.
Director Tom Hume said: "Health Amigo decided to promote the service primarily as a WAP operation and this has driven the way the PocketDoctor has grown.
"More than 70 per cent of the UK population has a mobile phone and WAP has grown faster than the web did in its first years.
"There are more than one million active WAP subscribers in the UK. Health care is a personal matter and people are much more comfortable discussing it on a phone than on the web.
"People surf from their office or living room and might be concerned about privacy.
"Phones are preferable for instant medical advice. The PocketDoctor philosophy is, the better informed a patient is about their health care, the better the treatment will be. It tries to be the patient's friend."
Users can access PocketDoctor information using a quick text trail on the screens of their WAP phones or at the web site.
PDAs display an offline version of the Pocket Doctor, downloaded on to the unit and updated at regular intervals from the web site.
The services are free, with income generated through advertising.
Mr Hume said: "Chargeable subscriber add-ons are being planned, for example children's health guides."
PocketDoctor includes a medical encyclopedia listing all known illnesses, advice on questions to ask when visiting a doctor and a section on first aid, which has been translated into six languages for distribution on European WAP portals.
Mr Hume said: "Health Amigo is always keen to try new ways to spread the content and we are looking into providing the service through digital television in the near future.
"The latest advance is BT's choice to use PocketDoctor as one of a handful of content providers for its third generation mobile network trials.
"What the BT trial has shown is the addition of colour graphics and better quality phone screens can prove surprisingly effective when it comes to presenting content.
"Just look at how the web started taking off when browsers that could display graphics arrived. We expect these phones to have a similar effect."
Future Platforms specialises in providing products for hand-held and wireless services.
The company has developed multi-player games for mobile phones, short message service (SMS) reminders and promotions campaigns.
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