The NHS has been given permission to close Chipping Norton Hospital after a year-long battle with campaigners.

The town's war memorial hospital building is to be sold off, and 14 of its beds, its X-ray department and maternity unit will move into a new care home for the elderly nearby and be managed by a charitable trust.

Details of how the old hospital's minor injuries unit - a walk-in service for people with broken bones, cuts and stings - will be replaced have not been decided.

Campaigners have criticised the decision by an Oxfordshire County Council scrutiny committee to give the plan a final green light.

Hilary Hibbert-Biles, conservative county councillor for Chipping Norton, said: "I feel the people of Chipping Norton have been treated shabbily by the county joint health overview and scrutiny committee.

"I don't feel procedures were followed: for example at their last meeting in July a full business case was asked for - and refused . All decisions should be evidence-based.

"To my mind the committee has damaged its reputation and credibility for the future. Now the decision has been made, we must monitor the development to make sure that all these promised facilities come to fruition."

In recent months discussions between campaigners and the North Oxfordshire PCT Partnership have revolved around who will own and staff the beds - campaigners wanted them to stay within the NHS, while the PCT wanted them staffed by nurses from the Order of St John, which will run the old people's home.

The Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee said the PCT could staff the new unit with NHS staff seconded to the Order of St John, and could review the arrangement after three years.

Heather Barnett, spokesman for the PCT, said: "They can't commit to things being the same indefinitely because circumstances change."

She said the PCT would be in control of the new unit, although it would be managed by the charitable trust.

Clive Hill, from the Hospital Action Group, said: "I think there's a real concern this is the thin end of the wedge. We've got no guarantee the beds won't quietly slide into care home use. The PCT aren't even calling it a hospital any more, they're calling it a primary care centre, and I think that's a complete giveaway."

The county council, which is building the new care home to replace its Castle View site, said it expects it to be open by 2008.

Ms Barnett said any further delay risked losing the hospital services because they were bound up with the county's building plans.