HEALTH workers were celebrating across the region yesterday as the Government announced that more than £56m will be spent on the NHS in the North-East.

Of that, more than £38m will go to the County Durham and Darlington NHS Health Authority to be spent on GPs, community care and mental health services.

A further £18.8m was also allocated to Sunderland NHS Primary Care Group, to be spent on providing more nurses and improving health centre premises.

Ken Jarrod, chief executive of the Durham and Darlington NHS Trust, was overjoyed at the announcement.

He said: "I am delighted that these very substantial funds have been made available to us and that the authority has been able to agree plans for expenditure.

"It will be a big challenge to spend the new money wisely and well, but we are strongly committed to a programme of modernisation and improvement."

Darlington GP Dr David Russell was especially pleased with the extra £5.9m to be spent on GP prescriptions. He said: "These developments will bring many benefits to patients as well as making our lives easier.

"The money spent to enable us to communicate directly with the hospital by e-mail will allow much easier access to results of various investigations, as well as being able to make appointments for the patient directly."

As well as the £5.9m to GPs, £1.1m will be spent on primary and community care, £1.6m on mental health services, £700,000 on learning disability services, £3.8m on acute services and £2.1m on primary care groups.

In Sunderland, it was revealed that the extra £18.8m will mean a total of £220m will be spent on health care in Sunderland in the next year.

About £185,000 will be invested in extra nursing posts, £100,000 to improving premises at Monkwearmouth Health Centre and £30,000 on services for patients in GP surgeries.

Money will also be spent on cancer services, reducing waiting lists, out-of-hours mental health services and improving heart disease care.