HEALTH Secretary Alan Milburn's plan to speed up treatment in casualty units is already paying dividends in the North-East, it was revealed last night.

The Darlington MP responded to worsening accident and emergency waiting times by announcing new measures this week.

Mr Milburn is spending £40m on an extra 600 Accident and Emergency nurses, and wants to see a more efficient way of "streaming" patients in emergency units, so serious and less serious patients are seen by separate medical teams, instead of waiting in a single queue.

But doctors and nurses at the University Hospital of North Durham have been using the new approach to treatment since September 1, and waiting times are already coming down.

The hospital recently boosted its casualty unit team by taking on two more staff grade doctors and seven more nurses.

Dr Chris Phillips, A and E consultant at the Durham hospital, said the extra staff meant that it was possible to operate two teams in casualty. One team tackles urgent patients and the other treats less serious cases.

It means that patients who kept losing their places in the queue to more urgent cases should see a nurse or doctor more quickly.

Early figures show that in the first half of this year, when the old system was still in force, 32 per cent of patients were seen within an hour. Since the new streaming system was introduced that has risen to 45 per cent.

The proportion of patients admitted within four hours has also gone up from 50 per cent to 59 per cent in the same period. "It is early days, but things are going the right way," said Mr Phillips.

He welcomed Mr Milburn's efforts to reduce "bed-blocking", when patients have to stay in hospital because resources are not available to fund beds in nursing and residential homes.

"For several months, on any given day, we were waiting for up to 40 patients to be placed in social services care.

"If we had that many spare beds every day there would not be a bed capacity problem at this hospital," said Mr Phillips.

A and E manager John Arthurs said discussions were being held with local GPs to try to absorb more patients who turn up in casualty inappropriately