The NHS Commissioning Board has appointed 22 doctors as national clinical directors or ‘Tsars’ to oversee specialist areas of NHS care.

They fall into four broad domains: ‘reducing mortality’, ‘long-term conditions’, ‘acute episodes of care’ and ‘patient experience’.

Two new directorships reflect a concern with recovery from illness and early discharge from hospital: ‘enhanced recovery and acute surgery’ and ‘rehabilitation and recovering in the community’.

Two more new clinical areas are relevant to the needs of the growing elderly population: ‘integration and frail elderly’ and ‘end of life care’.

Sir Bruce Keogh (pictured), the Commissioning Board’s Medical Director, said: “Our national clinical directors will provide the expert insight, knowledge and research we need in order to understand and address the challenges we face in all different aspects of NHS care.”

According to the NHS CB, “A national clinical director’s role is to spearhead change. They work with policy and delivery teams, clinical networks and the NHS management community to achieve joined-up action.”

The four domain directors who will lead the specialist directors are: Mike Richards (reducing mortality), Martin McShane (long-term conditions), Keith Willett (acute episodes of care) and Neil Churchill (patient experience).

There are now 25 specialist directors, with four more still to be appointed, and one post (that of stroke tsar) being shared by two doctors.

The UK economy has shown 1% growth in the last quarter after nine months of recession, but analysts are unsure whether this represents a true recovery.

The slight upturn in gross domestic product (GDP) falls far short of a return to the output levels seen before the financial crisis of 2008.

The Olympics are thought to have given the UK economy a temporary boost alongside the automatic ‘dead cat bounce’ following a steep decline.

The term ‘dead cat bounce’ comes from a saying in the financial sector: Even a dead cat will bounce if it you drop it far enough.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s GDP increased by 1% between July and September after falling by 1.1% in the previous three months.

However, the ONS noted, this included a 0.2% boost due to Olympic ticket sales, with further benefits from hotel and restaurant activity and temporary jobs.

In addition, the preceding three months had been unexpectedly difficult due to bad weather and the Jubilee public holiday.

The emphasis placed on these minor factors underline the absence of major dynamic change in the UK economy.

“While the news is positive, the estimate must be put in context,” said David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce. “Compared to a year earlier, the figures show that the economy is stagnant.”

Richard Halstead, Midlands Region Director at EEF (a manufacturers’ organisation), likewise warned: “With survey data, particularly in our major markets, pointing to difficult trading conditions in recent months, it’s unlikely this pace of expansion will be maintained into the New Year.”

In the last quarter, the production sector grew by 1.1% – an encouraging figure for the pharmaceutical industry.

A Birmingham GP who called the NHS reform plans “unworkable” is one of two clinicians newly appointed to the Medical Directorate of the NHS Commissioning Board.

Professor Steve Field (pictured), who as Chair of the NHS Future Forum argued that the Government’s plans for hospital competition would destabilise the NHS, has been appointed Deputy National Medical Director (Health Inequalities).

Like Business Secretary Vince Cable in the Government, Field is a policy sceptic who has been kept ‘inside’ by the leadership to provide a more critical dynamic.

Field, who is Chair of the DH’s National Inclusion Health Board, will lead the NHS CB’s work to reduce health inequalities.

Professor Keith Willett, the current National Clinical Director for Trauma Care, has been appointed Director for Acute Episodes of Care with responsibility for Domain 3 of the NHS Outcomes Framework (“helping people to recover from episodes of ill health or following injury”).

Willett, who has been an orthopaedic trauma surgeon in Oxford, will lead the Board’s work to assist rapid recovery from illness or injury.

The NHS Commissioning Board Authority’s National Medical Director, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, said that both recruits “have a strong track record of leadership and innovation which will be of enormous benefit to the NHS”.

The Government has published an ‘implementation framework’ for its mental health strategy, involving a wide range of care services.

A ‘mental health dashboard’, allowing progress against the relevant objectives for the NHS, social care and public health to be measured, will be published in the autumn.

The framework’s core principle, and a priority for the NHS Commissioning Board, is “parity of esteem” between mental and physical healthcare.

Other priorities include giving more people access to evidence-based treatments; ensuring that patients and their families and carers are involved in service design and delivery.

The integration of mental with physical healthcare is reflected in the dual priority of improving the physical health of people with mental illness and the mental health of people with physical illness.

The framework outlines steps that commissioners and service providers, as well as business and the community, can take to improve the prevention and treatment of mental illness.

The CCG authorisation process will require applicants to prove they have the capability “to commission improved outcomes in mental health”. CCGs are urged to appoint a mental health lead at senior level, use specialist support and guidance, focus on early intervention and on recovery, and develop “innovative service models”.

Providers of mental health services should “focus on choice, recovery and personalisation”, as well as the relationship between physical and mental health.

GPs are asked to provide “appropriate early interventions”; to recognise and treat “co-morbidity of physical and mental illness”; to provide a choice of treatment for mental illness; and to develop “good practice in care planning”.

Guidelines for local authorities, health and wellbeing boards, social and public health services, Local Healthwatch and employers are included.

Support for these improvements at a national level will be provided by the NHS Commissioning Board, and by the development of a tariff for mental health services that will “connect payment to recovery and to the patient’s experience”.

Royal Philips Electronics is developing a new range of healing environments at a new dedicated research facility at its Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Adding to Philips’ portfolio of solutions for hospital care, the healing environments use technology to reduce patient stress, accelerate recovery and improve treatment outcomes.

The new project reflects the emergence of a generation of patients who are well-informed about their condition and exercise their power of choice in finding the hospital that best meets their needs.

One of the concepts under development is a PE-CT uptake room (pictured) that uses calming lighting, video images and sounds to reduce the stress levels of patients awaiting an oncology scan.

Other well-advanced projects include environments focused on preventing delirium in intensive care units.

The new healing environment solutions will be trialled in the facility’s Hospital Area, which simulates the conditions of real hospitals.

“There is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that patient-friendly comforting environments not only reduce anxiety levels but also promote the healing process itself,” said Henk van Houten, General Manager of Philips Research.

“The opening of the Hospital Area is a clear expression of our commitment to this important new area of healthcare research, which leverages Philips’ unique expertise in healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle.”

Philips’s existing products in the healing environments field include the Ambient Experience solution for medical imaging and A&E departments, which uses lighting, sound and images to reduce the stress levels of children undergoing a scan.

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is a diversified healthcare company specialising in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare.

The gap left by the closure of Pfizer’s Sandwich base in east Kent has sparked warnings that recovery could take ten years.

Councillor Paul Carter of Kent County Council has said that although there had been interest in the site, it could take a decade for the region to recover from thousands of job losses.

The drugs giant announced in February that only 350 jobs would be saved out of the 2,400 employees at the facility.

Pfizer has said it will “continue to actively market” the site as ‘Discovery Park’ with its brokers. John Westwood, Real Estate Director at Pfizer, says “there has been interest, and we are continuing to pursue those avenues”.

But Councillor Carter has warned a buyer would need to be patient and allow time for the site to deliver results.

After the closure was announced, a task force of politicians was set up to support new business and employment on the Pfizer site.

Laura Sandys, Conservative MP, South Thanet, and a member of the task force, attacked the pharma giant for the speed of the redundancies: “Pfizer is exiting or creating redundancies too quickly for us to be able to secure that finance and that investment from private sector companies.”

Pfizer said there will be a phased exit of the site in Ramsgate Road by 2012. The site was put on the market in June.