More than a thousand staff in the two hospitals are being balloted for industrial action this week. Union officials said the effect on hospitals would be devastating, but their patience had been exhausted over a failure to give workers back pay they are owed.

One caterer, who did not wish to be named, said: "We are all waiting for the money and everyone is panicking.

"We are all disgusted and it doesn't give us any heart to work.

"It's like we don't exist but the hospital can't be run without us.

"They are treating us as though we are idiots." But a spokesman for the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust said the dispute had been resolved some time agoand the argument was over a technicality.

The trust and company agreed to give back pay to the workers from their wage increases in October and April.

This coincides with the government forcing Trusts to cut back on their budgets after 'overspending', itself largely a result of business involvement in the NHS.