Clarke gets role as trade "rocket booster" Ken Clarke, the veteran Conservative politician, is to head a drive to sell expertise from the NHS to China - where the growing healthcare market is forecast to be worth £400bn a year within the next decade. Mr Clarke, who lost his job as justice secretary in last month's reshuffle, will take on the role of a roving trade envoy focused on building business links with emerging markets. The former health secretary who has held almost the full range of cabinet posts in 42 years in politics, is to work as the prime minister's personal representative to put "rocket-boosters" under what Downing Street hopes will be an export-led economic recovery. When Vince Cable, business secretary, announced key sectors that would lie at the heart of Britain's industrial strategy, some noted the absence of healthcare from the list. But ministers are increasingly realising that the NHS should do more to exploit the value of its brand and will next year launch Healthcare UK, which will connect leading hospitals with potential overseas clients. Some institutions have developed their own export models: Moorfields, the London eye hospital, has a private unit in Dubai and Imperial College Healthcare has an outpost in the United Arab Emirates. The focus on China comes after UK Trade & Investment, the department which helps sell UK business abroad, identified a significant opportunity in the Chinese government's commitment to provide affordable, equitable healthcare for all by 2020 - part of a bid to rebalance the economy by reducing the need for people to save money to spend on healthcare. The Chinese are said to be interested in the NHS model. The UK government hopes to sell expertise in consultancy, IT, medical equipment, training, pharmaceuticals, insurance and hospital design to its contemporaries in Asia. Mr Clarke is said to be enthused by the idea of promoting NHS expertise in healthcare commissioning, which he believes will be seen as a strength by the Chinese. Plans for health ministers to visit China are "in the pipeline." However, after consternation before the reshuffle that Mr Clarke's roving brief might lead him to stray on to colleagues" turf, his aides stressed he would work closely with relevant ministers, including Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary. Mr Hunt has jokingly drawn parallels between the NHS and Chinese institutions - telling Conservatives the health service was "the fifth largest organisation in the world: smaller than the Red Army but bigger than the Indian Railways."