Health chiefs play down fears over school sickness closures

Care chiefs have moved to play down concerns about the problem, which has seen dozens of children fall ill across the region in recent weeks.

Schools in Durham, Chester-le-Street, Sunderland, Washington and Jarrow have all been forced into temporary closures after youngsters reported symptoms including fever, vomiting and sore throats.

“We would expect, at this time of year, to have schools with an increased number of incidents,” Gill Findlay, director of nursing and quality for the Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield (DDES) and North Durham Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) told a combined governing body meeting on Tuesday, November 26.

“Schools will be advised by public health teams to close, but it’s not massively more than we would expect to see normally.