RESIDENTS in County Durham are to be first in line for more than 100 new jobs in the medical field.

After years of being starved of funds for healthcare, it was revealed earlier this year that a bumper £46m was heading to the Easington District.

Now, Easington's Primary Care Trust (PCT) is to set aside several million pounds of that on additional staff, including the recruitment of overseas doctors and dentists.

While the PCT is scouring Germany, Spain and Austria for GPs and dentists, to prevent a future crisis it is looking closer to home for scores of other medics as part of its "Big Project" for the area.

In an initial step, the PCT held a public meeting and workshops yesterday, at Shotton Hall in Peterlee, to test the grassroots' view of medical services in the area and to send out the message to prospective recruits.

Chief executive of the PCT, Dr Roger Bolas, has confirmed that to meet the health needs of the deprived community, approximately one-third of new GPs in the area will need to be recruited from abroad.

But it was the home-grown message that the PCT was driving yesterday in its bid to fill new posts with people from the area.

Liz Allan, the PCT's patient and public investment co-ordinator welcomed the 120 local people who attended the forum and quickly set them the task of outlining what they viewed as the essential elements for effective health care in east Durham.

"We want to get the message home, particularly to young people, that there are some real career opportunities in the medical world,'' she said.

"What we are looking to do is to work much more closely with schools, colleges and universities to inform young people of the career opportunities in fields such as nutrition, occupational therapy, public health, nursing and administration.''

The trust will also be looking for mature residents to train for some of the posts.

The most frequent message from those attending the forum was simply that residents want the health service in east Durham to be the best possible.

The views expressed will now be forwarded to the next board meeting of the PCT.