THE UK mental health tzar has opened a £2m hospital development in the region.

Professor Louis Appleby, national director for mental health, is pressing hospital trusts around the UK to modernise out-dated facilities.

Yesterday, he came to the North-East to visit a new acute admissions unit at Middlesbrough's St Luke's Hospital and unveil a commemorative plaque.

The Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust has spent £2m to transform a mixed sex ward area in the 105-year-old hospital into a new unit.

The Tees Bay facility provides patient and staff with up-to-date facilities. It includes a high dependency unit, single rooms for patients and an activities and therapies suite.

Prof Appleby spent three hours at the trust, meeting staff who were involved in the Tees Bay project.

The national director also visited the new female forensic mental health ward where he was told about the trust's £59m project to modernise the way mental health services are provided across Teesside and East Durham.

Moira Britton, chief executive, who welcomed Prof Appleby to the hospital, said: "Mental health services across the country have been set targets to ensure patients are treated in single sex wards, thanks to NHS funding we've been able to ensure that our adult acute mental health services at St Luke's Hospital meets those targets and offer a much improved environment to our patients."

Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust provides:

* Mental health services for the people of Easington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar and Cleveland, Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale

* Learning disability services for the people of Teesside

* Some specialist mental health and learning disability services for other parts of northern England.