NHS County Durham is a primary care trust, and - in partnership with NHS Darlington - is responsible for improving the health and wellbeing of the 600,000 people it serves across County Durham and Darlington.

Primary care trusts manage the care provided by people you normally see when you first have a health problem, such as GPs, dentists, or health care centres, in a particular geographic area.

Our Chief Executive is Yasmin Chaudhry (also Chief Executive for NHS Darlington) and our Chair is Ann Calman. You can contact us here.

NHS County Durham employs approximately 350 staff.

NHS County Durham works jointly with NHS Darlington to commission - plan and pay for - services from others, including GPs, dentists, pharmacists, opticians, and voluntary sector organisations.

Working together, we are known as NHS County Durham and Darlington.

How NHS County Durham serves its communities

Working with NHS Darlington, we invest around £1.1billion a year to provide and improve access to health services to meet the needs of our population in County Durham and Darlington.

We are held accountable for the quality and accessibility of these services. Find out more about our commissioning role.

Our primary care and community services are provided by NHS County Durham and Darlington Community Health Services.

Other responsibilities

NHS County Durham and NHS Darlington are the joint lead commissioners for mental health and learning disabilities and offender health in the North East. 

How we fit into the NHS structure

NHS County Durham is one of two primary care trusts in County Durham and Darlington. The other is NHS Darlington. We work together to commission services as NHS County Durham and Darlington.

NHS County Durham and NHS Darlington are managed by NHS Northeast, the Strategic Health Authority for the region.

Find out more about the NHS structure to see how it all fits together.

Organisation history

NHS County Durham was formed on 1^st October 2006 following the formal amalgamation of five primary care trusts (PCTs) into a single PCT across County Durham. We became one of the first PCTs nationally to become a commissioning only organisation.