Patients waiting for operations at Oxfordshire's major hospitals will have to wait at least five months for their treatment even if it can be done earlier.

To help balance their own books, the county's five primary care trusts - who pay for patient care - have asked Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals to book inpatients for treatment just a few weeks before they are liable to breach the Government's six-month waiting time target.

The news came as ORH board members agreed to cost-cutting proposals to save £33m, which could see up to 300 staff being made redundant, with some going by the end of August.

ORH trust planning and information director Andrew Stevens said that at the end of April, 388 people had waited 20 weeks or more for inpatient care, compared with a target of 226.

He added: "Achievement of this target is being constrained by the fact that a number of the trust's commissioners, because of the financial situation they face, are instructing the trust not to treat any routine patients before the five months target.

"This reduces the amount of headroom available to the trust to manage demand pressures."

Chief executive Trevor Campbell Davis said that together with the trust's own plans to reduce services and cut up to 600 posts including up to a half through redundancies the PCTs' request was likely to affect patients.

He said: "These plans will inevitably put these things under future pressure. Patients are getting treated much quicker now, but we must be aware of some edges to the sword over the next few months. Difficult and large changes will impact on patient care our task is to minimise that."

Oxfordshire's PCTs are working together on their own plan to save £18m.

A spokesman said the decision to treat people after five months was a joint decision with the ORH, to bring "equity" among patients. She added the policy meant some patients referred later this financial year would not be treated until after March 2007, allowing PCTs to delay payment for their care until the following financial year.

She added: "We've asked the ORH to perform operations in order of the length of time a patient has been on the waiting list to ensure that those who have been waiting longest are treated first within the standard six-month waiting time.

"This enables money to flow regularly and helps us to manage our limited funding through to the end of this financial year.

"The ORH agrees that some elements of its system, in terms of consultant waiting lists, means some patients may move faster through the system than others."

The plans to cut jobs and axe beds signalled the county's blackest day, according to MPs.

Banbury MP Tony Baldry and Oxford West and Abingdon MP Dr Evan Harris blamed the Government for yesterday's decision to reduce services.

Liberal Democrat Dr Harris criticized the NHS "target culture".

He said: "Patient care and waiting times will be affected, and, as the health service has admitted, there'll be less choice about where to be treated. The day of reckoning for the Government must surely follow."

Conservative Mr Baldry has already launched a petition urging the Government to look at the formula used to distribute health care funding.

He added: "What the Government is doing to the NHS is wholly unacceptable and something the people of Britain will not accept."

Unison regional officer Kelvin Oubrey said: "Don't underestimate the impact this will have. It's not only the threat of redundancies, but the extra pressures on staff that will remain. Staff work here because they care about the services they provide. There'll be a significant loss of morale."