SECRETARIES may be given the responsibility of weighing babies in Bexley, a union has claimed.

A health care manager is said to be behind the idea that administrative staff take on the duty of weighing babies to ease the work load of clinically-trained health visitors.

A meeting is understood to have been scheduled for Thursday, February 22, to discuss the issue. Although the trusts insists the weighing of babies is done by appropriately-trained staff, the health union Amicus has branded the proposal "frightening".

Lead professional officer Obi Amadi stressed the need for trained staff to carry out the duties, adding: “It seems that the importance of what really happens when a child is undressed and weighed at a clinic has been lost or forgotten to pander to the desire to cut costs.”

Bexley Care Trust has been forced to implement various service cuts to turn around its finances. It is currently expected to be £20 million in debt by the end of March 2008.

As of Friday, it has reduced the number of admin staff employed to assist health visitors by half, prompting concerns over the possible impact on patients if health visitor time it taken up with extra administrative duties.

But a spokesman for Bexley Care Trust said: “We recognise that health visitors play a vital role in the early development of local children and provide valuable support to parents and carers and we wish to protect the clinical hours they have available to them to deliver this essential service.

"To achieve this we are working with our staff to reduce the amount of paperwork clinical staff are required to complete.”

In response to the suggestions secretaries might be asked to weigh babies, the trust added: “Health checks of babies are important in the early part of their development. Bexley Care Trust can confirm that the weighing of babies is undertaken by appropriately trained staff.”