AN MP and council representatives hope to get assurances about the future of services at a North-East hospital when they lobby the health secretary later today (Tuesday, March 2).

Hartlepool MP Iain Wright and Hartlepool council leader Christopher Akers-Belcher are meeting Jeremy Hunt in the House of Commons to ask for a full-service hospital to be returned to the town.

Many services, including A&E, were transferred away from Hartlepool to North Tees while plans were underway for a £300m 'super hospital' at Wynyard, but plans for that hospital have now been put on hold.

The Council initially wrote to Mr Hunt late last year after passing a vote of no confidence in North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and demanded that hospital services - including Accident and Emergency - were moved back to Hartlepool.

This followed a heated meeting when Trust bosses confirmed they had no plans to reinstate services at the University Hospital of Hartlepool.

Mr Hunt turned the council's meeting request down twice but agreed following an approach by Mr Wright.

Mr Akers-Belcher said: “Hartlepool people want high quality, local hospital services which are accessible to them and they simply do not want to travel to North Tees.

“We will be relaying this message from the people of Hartlepool to Mr Hunt and it is hoped that he can intervene to remedy what is currently a hugely unacceptable situation with our hospital services.”