ABOUT 150 jobs could be at risk at Colchester General Hospital as part of moves to merge pathology services.

The NHS is reviewing lab testing and wants hospitals to centralise services.

Staff at the Turner Road hospital fear the move could see scores of job losses and possibly the closure of its pathology service altogether.

The hospital said no decisions had been made, but could not rule out job losses, or the closure of the service. There are 150 laboratory staff working in biochemistry, cellular pathology, haematology and microbiology at the hospital.

A source, who asked not to be named, said: “Staff have been forewarned of redundancy. Initially, this will be for GP-generated specimens, then hospital specimens to follow.

“This is purely a finance-driven initiative with a massive detrimental effect on patient care.”

An NHS spokesman said: “We have been talking to a number of acute hospital trusts in the East of England in order to identify the best option, or options, to enable us to achieve our core objective.

“That objective is we shall maintain a viable pathology service that can support the acute services we provide at Colchester General Hospital and Essex County Hospital on a 24/7 basis.

“NHS East of England's timetable is very ambitious. It aims to award the contract for community pathology work in January 2012 and for that contract to begin in April 2012.

“It is understandable pathology staff are worried about their futures, but at this relatively early stage it would be pure speculation to start talking about redundancies.”

Dr Gordon Coutts, the hospital trust’s chief executive, last week wrote to all pathology staff to update them.

He has also held meetings with laboratory staff to listen to their concerns. The hospital’s microbiologists process 240,000 specimens a year. About 50 per cent are from hospitals in Colchester, Clacton, Halstead and Harwich and the remainder are from GP surgeries all over north-east Essex.