The NHS will turn 60 on July 5 and all staff in the region who were born in July 1948 were invited to a lunch at the Durham Marriott Hotel last week to celebrate this important milestone.

The event was hosted by Ian Dalton, chief executive of North east Strategic Health Authority, and it is one of several happening across the region in the coming weeks.

Also attending the lunch was health minister Ann Keen, who thanked staff for their contribution to the service before touring hospital facilities in Tyneside.

Mr Dalton said NHS staff in the north east have worked hard over the decades to create a health service to be proud of.

"This birthday lunch is a small thank you to some of those who provide such fantastic services and who share their special birthday with the NHS," he said.

"The NHS has been instrumental in improving the life quality and expectancy of people across the region.

"In 1948, the transforming vision of a health service free at the point of need put an end to fears that only those who could afford to pay would receive health care and this ethos remains at the heart of today's modern NHS," he said.

Aneurin Bevan, the newly appointed Health Minister, was given the task of introducing the National Health Service back in 1948.

Healthcare in the UK prior to the Second World War had been a patchwork quilt of private, municipal and charity schemes.

Bevan decided that the way forward was a national system primarily operated by the Department of Health.