More than 100 admin staff at the Whittington Hospital have been told to re-apply for their jobs in a bid to “streamline existing processes”.

Whittington Health, which runs the hospital, has launched an internal consultation with non-clinical staff that could see job losses.

The consultation document says 125 posts are affected and only 96 jobs will be available – which other Whittington employees will also be entitled to go for.

The 125 posts are currently filled by 101 permanent staff and other temporary or agency staff.

‘am Okuns-Edokpayi, Unison regional organiser for north central London, said: “Members of staff are very unhappy and upset about the situation. This is just phase one and phase two will involve clinical staff. Obviously there’s going to be some redundancies and they’ve set aside a pot of �941,000 to pay for that. They are only saving �1.1million, so they aren’t making much money.

“There’s nothing we can do. We’re angry about the way it’s been handled – they’ve brought in a private firm, Unipart, to do the consultation. Senior management should have done it, but instead they’ve paid Unipart about �500,000, which could have funded 20 admin staff for a year.”

Shirley Franklin, chairman of the Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition, said: “Staff are terribly panicked about it, they are really worried, and that’s going to have an impact on patients.”

A spokesman for Whittington Health said it was not possible to confirm how many staff may be at risk of redundancy, but that all possible steps are being taken to minimise this. She said there may be other vacancies elsewhere in the hospital.

She added: “Whittington Health has been working to redesign patient administration as part of its Transforming Patient Experience project in order to streamline existing processes, improve the quality of administrative support provided and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy with the overall aim of improving both the patient experience and reducing administrative costs.”