Medical secretaries claim they were treated badly by an Oxford hospital which used X-Factor-style techniques to announce redundancies.

The 19-strong team from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre received letters telling them to go to one of two rooms, where they were later told whether or not they had successfully been appointed for one of 11 replacement jobs as team coordinators.

The experience mimicked the ITV show The X-Factor, where singers who have reached the final auditions are separated into groups before being told which ones have made it through to the show.

The NOC's grade four secretaries, who earned £16,500-£19,500 a year working for the hospital's 99 consultants, were told their jobs were under threat in June.

Seven have been made redundant and one left voluntarily.

They have been replaced by the 11 grade-four team coordinators and seven grade-two admin workers who will earn £12,200-£15,100 a year doing transcription and typing.

One of the secretaries, who would not be named, said: "Letters were all handed out with a room written on the letter that the secretaries had to go to. Those in one room were told they had the jobs and those in another were told they hadn't."

NOC chief executive Jan Fowler said human resources managers had used the X-Factor-style system to give news to the secretaries, claiming it had been important they were told about their futures simultaneously.