DOCTORS, nurses and students have taken up acting in a bid to improve health care in the region.

Newcastle University has joined the city's Live Theatre company to explore the ways in which drama can help modern doctors.

The project, known as Operating Theatre, was the idea of Gateshead GP, Dr Dominic Slowie, a lecturer in the Department of Primary Health Care.

"Anyone who has seen a film or a play that has moved or changed them will recognise how powerful a tool drama can be and how much insight into the human experience it offers," he said.

Carol Clewlow, first writer in residence at Durham University's Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine, helped found the project.

She said: "We have stressed right from the beginning that what we want to produce is not only theatre which is educational but which stands up in its own right as first-rate drama."

Live Theatre resident playwright Julia Darling, who also helped found the project, said: "We are creating plays from things which affect us all."

One of the region's musicians, Pete Scott, is also heavily involved.

The project also involves Northumbria University's School of Nursing.