You will find details of our holdings for
hospitals in County Durham and Darlington in catalogues which can be searched online.
In particular the Record Office holds a large collection of records for Winterton Hospital, the County Lunatic Asylum, which was located at Sedgefield in County Durham. The collection includes administrative records and patients’ case notes.
The records of patients and staff are closed to the public for 100 years, minute books which include details of complaints are closed for 75 years and management committee minutes are closed for 30 years. All closure periods run from the final date of a volume.
The Hospital Records Database on the website of The National Archives provides information on the existence and location of the records of hospitals in the United Kingdom. The entries, which have been compiled by the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, can be found by searching the database and they include the following information:
- The administrative details of the hospitals, and their status or type.
- The location and covering dates of administrative and clinical records.
- The existence of lists, catalogues or other finding aids.
- Links to some online hospital catalogues on Access to Archives (A2A).
