The NHS is making fresh contingency plans for war.

Senior managers from six joint NHS/military hospitals across England met health officials on Thursday to discuss how they will cope if key medical staff are called up.

BBC Health Correspondent, Adam Brimelow has been to one of the hospitals, in Peterborough, to see how plans are progressing.

---

The chat between staff on the orthopaedic ward at Peterborough hospital is a little more clipped and formal than in most of the NHS.

Rank and grade is never forgotten. These are full-time military regulars, employed by the ministry of defence, but working for the health service.

There are at least 1,000 of these staff across the NHS in England, 200 of them here in Peterborough, including surgeons, physicians, nurses, and administrative staff.

They do a crucial job, but they could be among the first sent out to a war zone.

The hospital is trying to ensure cover in case they are called up.

Replacements

We all got a bit of a buzz out of the work we were doing Dr Richard Withers

Bill Stevenson, a director of Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust, who oversees staffing, says some services are harder to cover than others, but he has already identified replacements.

"We may ask people who've retired recently, if they wish to come back on a short term basis", he said.

"We may ask some local GPs who've worked for us in the past, in accident and emergency for example, if they'd mind coming back and working for us."

One local GP who helped out during the Gulf War, and is ready to do it again is Dr Richard Withers, based in Yaxley just outside Peterborough.

"Like anything a change in life is quite welcome, and we all got a bit of a buzz out of the work we were doing", he said.

Busy time

But can the NHS cope with losing staff - particularly if they leave during winter, the busiest time of the year for hospitals?

We'll be making every effort behind the scenes to ensure that the public and the services we provide run normally Bill Stevenson

Martin Weatherill, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Milton Keynes General Hospital, left the army in 1988. But he served in the Gulf War and may be called up again.

He says the NHS will find it even harder to lose people with his kind of skills.

The job has become more specialised in the last ten years, and the NHS targets introduced in recent years mean that key staff will be badly missed.

"It would be difficult for my colleagues to pick up some of the surgical activities that I do.

I doubt very much that there would be a locum with specific skills to cover my particular specialties".

Back at Peterborough Bill Stevenson says whatever the demands of war, they'll just have to cope as best they can.

"Nobody can be a 100% confident that we will be able to respond properly, but we'll be making every effort behind the scenes to ensure that the public and the services we provide run normally, and there's no distinct difference."