ONE of the region's largest hospital trusts has seen complaints go down and compliments from patients and carers go up.

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in Darlington, Durham City and Bishop Auckland, received 18,583 compliments from patients and their carers during 2012-2013 - 3,820 more than for the previous year.

The high number of positive comments, emails, letters and phone calls received by the trust is thought to have been helped by a drive to encourage more patient feedback.

The number of complaints also fell, from 651 in 2011-2012, to 585 in 2012-2013.

Jill Salkeld, the trust's patient experience manager, said: "We've been working hard to obtain feedback from patients and their carers, and then to ensure we are using the information they give us effectively, to improve treatment and services."

Initiatives have included staff conducting more than 3,000 interviews with patients on wards across the trust's hospitals, obtaining views on all aspects of their treatment, such as medication, nurses, doctors, pain control, communication and consistency of care. Their comments were then fed back to staff.

"The interviews we did on each ward showed us what the standards of care were, where best practice was and where improvements were needed," said Ms Salkeld.

"Feeding that information back to staff enabled us to show them what we do well and where we can improve."

Action plans were devised after twelve patients and carers were asked for their stories.

These plans were shared with staff across the trust, from commissioners and senior managers to health workers on the front line.

A DVD was also made featuring patients which is now part of the induction training for student nurses.