A COMPUTERISED solution to monitoring the National Health Service is to be unveiled thanks to pioneering work in Darlington.

Health officials from across the North-East will attend a conference at the Scotch Corner House Hotel next month, to find out more about the systems developed by Darlington Primary Care Trust.

The trust agreed to pilot a performance management tool provided by CACI/Rochester Information Systems.

The computer system is being be used to monitor every aspect of the working of the trust, setting them against local and national targets to monitor its performance.

The system automatically flags up where results are lagging behind targets by attaching a traffic light - green representing on target, red falling well behind.

Performance manager Michael Wilson said: "We needed a system that could help us manage performance much more efficiently, a tool that would provide access to data and present it in a way that could be analysed quickly."