STAFF at Warrington and Halton hospitals held a silent protest at a governors meeting today against plans to axe up to 50 per cent of medical secretaries.

Consultants and secretaries have warned the trust that this could be extremely dangerous and damaging to frontline services as the cuts will impact on standards of patient care, clinical risk and efficiency.

A petition signed by staff and patients was presented to the governors to make them fully aware of their serious concerns.

A medical secretary who wished to remain unnamed said: "Management don’t understand the service we provide. We are often unseen but are the public face of the trust, dealing directly with patients concerns which results in fewer complaints through the trust's official procedure.

"Without us patients would be left waiting longer or even turning up for clinics that aren’t running.

"The consultants' workload is organised by us so that the time spent treating patients is at a maximum, also making sure that reports are provided on time minimising the risk of errors which directly affects patient safety.

"We’re really concerned that if the trust pushes ahead the consultant will have to spend time on admin work and will simply have less time to spend with patients and there could be an increased risk of clinical negligence."

Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector trade union, has condemned the plans as a dangerous cost cutting exercise that may well cost more money than it saves. The trust hopes to save £300,000 through the proposals yet has already spent £2.75 million on private consultancy firms to identify cost savings.

Unison regional organiser Andrew Rutherford said: "We are now seeing the damage inflicted by the coalition in real terms despite their pre-election promises not to cut the NHS.

"We are aware that MPs are aware of the issue and are seeking to meet with them to share our concerns. Not only will this detrimentally affect patient care running real risks of clinical negligence, but we are also aware that hospitals can be subjected to financial penalties if there are breaches of clinical correspondence deadlines.

"We are sure the consultants would agree with us that this is a recipe for disaster.

"Hopefully the trust will listen to staff as they have done in other progressive hospitals where these plans have been shelved.

"Unison would suggest that the trust seeks to make efficiencies by ending the profligate waste on private consultancy firms so that taxpayers money is invested directly into patient care."

Meanwhile the hospital has again been linked with a possible merger with Whiston Hospital.

Whiston Hospital is looking at options to solve a funding blackhole - one of which is a possible merger with Warrington and Halton.