MEDICAL secretaries at the region's largest hospital trust are to be balloted on possible strike action, it was confirmed last night.

The health union Unison is to ask more than 200 medical secretaries at the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust whether they support walk-outs over pay.

If medical secretaries on Tyneside back strike action, it could hit patient services at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle General Hospital and the Freeman Hospital.

More than 130 medical secretaries have already been on strike for the best part of four weeks in Sunderland in pursuit of a regrading claim. And yesterday it was confirmed that medical secretaries at Health Secretary Alan Milburn's local hospital - Darlington Memorial - have overwhelmingly backed strike action.

Secretaries at Bishop Auckland General Hospital and South Tyneside District Hospital are also preparing to walk-out.

Dr Bill Ryder, chairman of the Northern region's Consultants and Specialists Committee, said: "For years, medical secretaries have been underpaid and under-valued. They have a very just cause and I think every consultant would support them."

Pat Bullock, a medical secretary at Darlington Memorial Hospital, said: "We are among the lowest paid medical secretaries in the country.

"We have never done anything like this before in our lives."

A spokeswoman at the City Hospital Sunderland Trust said while "contingency plans" meant that clinics and planned surgery were unaffected by the dispute up to now, the longer the strike went on the more difficult it would be to prevent disruption.

Medical secretaries in the region earn between £11,037 and £12,815 while their colleagues in Scotland and the South earn up to £15,546.

A spokeswoman for Mr Milburn said it was a matter for the local hospital management to resolve.