PLANS to make a North-East town the largest centre for hip and knee replacements in the region have been unveiled.

Health bosses hope that the creation of a regional centre of excellence in South-West Durham will end speculation about the long-term future of Bishop Auckland General Hospital.

Fears that the £67m hospital could become no more than a glorified cottage hospital have been expressed after consultant-led maternity and paediatric services were switched to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

While the plan to make Bishop Auckland a regional centre for planned hip and knee replacements is likely to bring down waiting times there is a downside.

The changes needed to create the so-called "hip factory" will mean that the number of weekly fracture clinics at Bishop Auckland will be reduced, forcing many local patients to attend clinics in Darlington or Durham.

And patients living around Darlington or Durham who require joint replacement are likely to be asked to travel to Bishop Auckland for their operation if they want a shorter waiting time.

Mr Howard Epstein, head of orthopaedic surgery at the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "This will be the biggest joint replacement centre in the North of England, serving a population of 520,000 people. We currently do about 860 joint replacements across the trust. Once we are fully established we should be doing 1,500 a year.

"This will allow us to provide a better service with greater sub-specialisation across County Durham. It will also mean Bishop Auckland will get new clinics staffed by a wide variety of consultants, including a foot and ankle clinic and a knee injury clinic."

Mr Epstein said the trust was struggling to maintain maximum waiting times for joint replacement within the nine months national limit because of lack of capacity.

The conversion of Bishop Auckland's orthopaedic unit into a joint replacement centre should allow waiting times to be reduced, he added.

"We aim to make this a centre of excellence. If all goes well, we might be able to take patients from across the wider region," the surgeon said.

The three main County Durham hospitals in Bishop Auckland, Darlington and Durham City are now part of a single 1,000 bed NHS trust.

Patients affected by the changes are being contacted by letter.