MANAGERS at East Surrey Hospital have quelled fears over job losses after announcing they intend to outsource some secretarial services to India.
A number of secretaries walked out of a meeting when the new proposal was announced last week, which would see the dictation of patients' letters sent overseas.
Bosses say if a three-month trial proves successful and the move made permanent, it could free up secretaries to deal with more patient queries and telephone calls, and give them more time to assist consultants.
East Surrey Hospital spokeswoman Tasha Gardner said: "Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS (SASH) Trust is continually looking at ways to help staff work more efficiently. Dictation work currently takes up 40 per cent of the medical secretaries' time. The trust is considering running a three-month pilot which would outsource this work.
"We will carefully evaluate the benefits of any trial with our medical secretarial staff and we do not envisage this resulting in any redundancies at this time."
Staff who leave may not, however, be replaced.
She also confirmed that a number of secretaries did walk out of the meeting but said the staff had since been given the full details of the scheme.