HEALTH bosses have revealed outline plans to open an acute hospital in the region by 2014.

The plan, to open a new kind of modern hospital to serve the people of Sedgefield, Easington, Hartlepool and Stockton, will mean existing hospitals in Hartlepool and Stockton will be demolished.

Although the site of the new hospital has not been chosen, NHS bosses said it should open in 2014.

Health officials have calculated that the hospital will cost about £416m and have 660 general, acute and maternity beds.

It will replace ageing buildings at the University Hospital of Hartlepool and the University Hospital of North Tees, in Stockton, but result in a reduction in overall hospital beds.

Hartlepool has about 345 beds and North Tees has about 480 beds.

Because the new hospital is being built at a time when the emphasis is shifting towards more healthcare being delivered in health centres and doctor's surgeries, NHS officials believe the demand for healthcare services can be met by improving and extending community healthcare services in towns served by the new hospital.

Information about the plans is contained in a document due to be discussed by the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust board at a meeting on Thursday.

The document proposes "a redesign of the healthcare system across primary, community and secondary care to provide the type and standard of care that the local community deserves."

Health officials in the North Tees area said the plan was needed "to ensure safer and more sustainable services, to improve primary and community care provision, to contribute to the improvement of health experiences in this deprived area of England as well as to address the poor physical condition and inappropriate locations of current health service buildings".

The latest shake-up of services in the North Tees area will be introduced on Monday when children's inpatient services at the Hartlepool hospital will close, though a paediatric assessment unit will remain open from 9am until 7pm, from Mondays to Fridays.

Also on Monday, maternity services at Hartlepool hospital will close to allow for the creation of a midwifeled unit due to open in May.

During that time, all hospital births in the area will take place at the North Tees hospital.