Staff at the hospital were told of the closure of the A+E department at a meeting yesterday.

The Mail reported exclusively in February that there were fears the service could be axed after a memo had been sent to staff.

The latest announcement comes just 24 hours after Government Health Minister Simon Burns told MPs he knows of no plans in place to shut the hospital.

Hospital bosses say there will still be emergency services available in the town, but they are changing how and where they are available under the momentum: pathways to healthcare programme.

They say further changes will come in the future as the programme progresses.

Bosses at the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in Hartlepool and Stockton, say people will be treated at the One Life Centre, in Park Road, for minor injuries and adults with medical conditions will be seen at the emergency assessment unit at the University Hospital of Hartlepool.

Hospital bosses say there will be no job losses as a result of the move.

David Emerton, medical director at the trust, said: "The momentum programme is all about moving care out of hospital where possible and closer to people's homes.

"Services aren't moving out of Hartlepool, some of them are just being provided in a different place."

But Keith Fisher, of the Save Our Hospital campaign that gathered more than 30,000 names on a petition to keep the site open, said: "A town the size of Hartlepool having no hospital accident and emergency is mindblowing. The town is too big and important to be neglected like this."

Hospital bosses say adults and children having had accidents and injuries, such as cuts, sprains, and broken bones, but not where bones are going through the skin, will go to One Life Hartlepool.

Adults with medical problems, such as breathing difficulties, will be taken to the emergency assessment unit straightaway.

Bosses say there will be no change to services for seriously injured adults and children as they will be taken to the University Hospital of North Tees as they are now.

They also say there will be no change to services for seriously ill children as they will be taken to the University Hospital of North Tees as they are now.

Hospital trust chiefs say that patients whose GPs asked for them to be taken to hospital already go the emergency assessment unit at the University Hospital of Hartlepool, but from October all adults who are seriously ill and brought in by ambulance will be taken to the unit.

They say the emergency assessment unit has a highly skilled team of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who are specially trained to deal with patients with serious medical problems.

This means people still need to do the same thing if an adult becomes seriously ill and contact their GP or phone 999.

They say that if an adult is seriously injured or a child is seriously injured or ill then people should ring 999.