Kent's newest accident and emergency department opened to patients this morning - as another of the county's hospitals closed after 77 years.

The £230m Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury opened its A&E department at 2am, while at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, the doors swung shut for the final time.

The old hospital has served Kent since before World War II but has been replaced by shiny new facilities and 21st Century technology just three miles down the road.

Pembury has 512 beds and is the first NHS hospital in the country to feature single en-suite rooms for all of its patients.

Hundreds of flatscreen TVs have been installed in patient rooms, thanks to £340,000 from the League of Friends - the group's biggest ever donation.

One of the hospital's most revolutionary features is a £200,000 robot called Doris, which will sort and dispense medication from the pharmacy.

Doris - given a female name because she is good at multi-tasking - has 30,000 different medicines at her finger tips and delivers them to individual wards via a helter skelter pipe.

The A&E department will treat around 50,000 patients every year, while the maternity unit will see nearly 100 babies born every week.

The move from Tunbridge Wells to Pembury has been carefully planned for several months.

A specially-adapted coach known as a Jumbulance has been used to transport patients on stretchers and in seats between the two hospitals. The final patients arrived at Pembury morning.