SCOTLAND'S largest health board is planning to shed more than 100 administrative staff in its battle to cut spending by £57 million and spare frontline services.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is seeking to axe more than 30% of secretarial posts, including jobs supporting doctors and consultants.

The cutback is among a raft of proposals due to be discussed by board members today. Around 500 projects to slash expenditure are being considered by staff groups as this year’s tight budget settlement and rising costs bite.

Unions have called the jobs cuts an “ill-conceived idea” which will threaten services.

The health board’s chief executive admitted the move could be viewed as “unwelcome” and “undesirable”, although he insisted it was necessary to maximise efficiencies and protect frontline services.

The papers going before the board this morning reveal managers hope to save £8.7m by redesigning the layout of some hospital and community health services, including the proposal to shut the children’s ward at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

A further £8.8m is to be saved by speeding up existing plans to centralise treatment and diagnostic departments, including creating a single site for ear, nose and throat surgery and a reduction in the number of laboratories following the creation of a high-tech hub.

Robert Calderwood, chief executive of NHSGGC, said: “All of these changes will be capable of being portrayed by the staff affected as unwelcome, from their perspective and their view of the community as potentially undesirable, but they are all linked to the theme of improving quality of service, getting the right balance between same day care and a significantly diminishing inpatient element, and being cost effective – because we have to live within the resources.”

Reviewing management and administration costs is projected to save the board £4.6m. This involves meeting the Scottish Government’s target to reduce the number of managers by 25% and the board’s plan to slash administrative jobs by one-third.

There are about 70 managerial and 100 administrative posts including medical secretaries and shorthand typists earmarked for the cuts. Receptionists and ward clerks are excluded from the cull.

Mr Calderwood said: “We have taken a view that as a consequence of new technology – emails, personal computers, iPads and iPhones – the world has moved on and therefore people like me no longer need to have full-time personal secretary/admin support.”

In line with Scottish Government policy no-one will be made redundant, with the aim being to reduce the workforce through natural wastage. However, where services are being re-organised and staff do not wish to be redeployed elsewhere, individuals can try to negotiate a small settlement and a “modest sum” has been set aside by the board for this purpose.

Matt McLaughlin, Glasgow health organiser for the public sector union, Unison, said: “There is this view that if you are not a nurse you are not frontline in the NHS, and that is simply not true. I would be surprised if the target is achievable and I would be shocked if they could achieve it and keep services at their current level.”

He added that administration staff make sure patients get appointments within Government targets, medical records are in the right place at the right time and there is enough clean bed linen for all the beds.

“Quite often it is low-paid, part-time female employees who make it all work,” he said.

Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said: “Medical secretaries and other administrators keep the NHS running and without them, clinicians would spend time sitting at computers doing routine administration rather than seeing patients, which is not the best use of their time and expertise.”