- NHS Employers is encouraging senior leaders and chief executives within the health service to use social media through an online campaign and 'how to' guide.
- MacLaurin Media's top two directors, Rania Johnson and Will Iredale, are launching their own comms agencies as their boss 'steps away from the coalface'.
- Larger PR agencies are winning digital business from specialist shops as they strengthen their in-house expertise, according to industry research.
- Two out of three people in Britain are off their feet, either seated or lying down, for more than 20 hours a day, leading to an increase in obesity, according to a WeightWatchers study.
- Pegasus has been brought in to handle a major consumer PR drive for two personal care brands, Cuticura and Soft & Gentle, on a retained basis.
- Today's rejection by MPs of Boris Johnson's proposed new airport in the Thames Estuary in favour of expansion at Heathrow is a 'victory for the aviation lobby', according to public affairs transport specialist Jim Dickson.
- The CEO of LD Communications masterminds PR for global rock icons including The Rolling Stones, finds Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith.
- Ford Retail has selected The Red Consultancy to develop a centralised comms function following a six-way pitch.
- After Dame Helen Mirren scolded a troupe of street drummers for making noise in the street during her performance as the Queen in The Audience last weekend, the Oscar-winning actress has been pictured smiling with the group.
- Manchester-based Tangerine PR is giving 80 teenagers the chance of a year-long paid placement with companies based in the North West.
- Shooting Star CHASE, the children's hospice charity, has drafted in 3 Monkeys to raise awareness of its work.
- The commercial arm of the National Gallery has hired Portas to lead media relations for its retail activities following a competitive pitch.
- LondonMexFest, the mini-festival celebrating contemporary Mexican culture, has called in PrettyGreen to handle its production and comms work for the 2013 event in the capital.
- Celgene is understood to have appointed Lexington Communications as its first retained agency for the UK and Ireland.
- Anti-wrinkle treatments are a 'crisis waiting to happen' and should be more tightly regulated, according to a report on the cosmetic surgery industry.
- Champollion has hired Branislava Milosevic to lead its digital arm and provide strategic digital input to the agency's new and current clients.
- Unlike the foul-mouthed character in the BBC sitcom, the DH's comms director is very cool in a crisis, finds Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou- Smith.
- Games manufacturer Sports Interactive is facing a torrent of complaint for inviting ten agencies to take part in a full-scale pitch for its flagship Football Manager game.
- West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust has poached Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust's comms director Antony Tiernan to fill a board-level comms position.
- Up to two million children could be susceptible to measles because of an unwarranted MMR vaccine scare 15 years ago, leading doctors have said.