We work to support our teams in delivering high quality health care to patients across Durham Dales.

Through managing contracts, recruiting a highly skilled workforce and analysing our performance we make sure we are giving the NHS the best possible value for money, and the best possible care for patients.

We work closely as a team to provide support to the 12 GP Practices in the Durham Dales.

The team work directly with patients in a number of different settings and locations. We see patients in local surgeries and visit them in their homes, we staff overflow appointments at Bishop Auckland Hospital and provide support to more than 20 care homes in the area.

We also provide wraparound care for elderly and frail patients, as well as providing pre-bookable appointments as part of the provision of extended hours services to patients.

We’re part of an innovative new way of supporting people with mental health needs in the community.

We create personalised care plans, provides links to other services, and help patients when they are discharged from secondary care.

Through regular reviews with patients, working alongside practices, we can give continuity of care to those who need it.

We work provide services both directly and indirectly to patients. Behind the scenes we check hospital discharge and clinic letters to make sure medications are accurate, deal with repeat dispensing and prescription requests and monitor blood test results for high risk drugs. We work with other staff to oversee how medicines are prescribed, and to answer specific questions.

Patients will see us more and more as we hold clinics, do in person and telephone reviews for medications and long term health conditions, as well as answering medication queries and offering counselling.

We provide support to our 12 member practices as well as 24 care homes in Durham Dales.

This involves central coordination of visits to patients with acute needs, diary management for our Community Psychiatric Team, helping triage patients, producing letters and dealing with queries.

The team also provide admin cover in the 12 practices during the week, reception cover for the extended hours services in the evenings and at Bishop Auckland Hospital at weekends.

We also coordinate and provide training for the Federation, member practices and local commissioning groups.

GPs had seen an increase in people coming to them with non-clinical issues because they had no one else to go to. The Health Care Coordinator Team was originally designed to support older or frail patients. Since the remit has changed, the team now support a range of ages including Learning Difficulties, End of Life, the Chronically ill and the vulnerable. The Health Care Coordinator team has also widened their clinical skills to help the cross over between social and medical problems.

Our team has a range of backgrounds, both inside and outside of the NHS, but they share a single priority: the needs of the patient come first.