Practices in much of England could be hit by a “secret” programme of cuts, it was alleged today.

The plans for dramatic cuts in NHS spending in much of England are shrouded in secrecy, the British Medical Association said.

13 areas of England have been ordered to achieve a half a billion reduction in spending by next April.

But the British Medical Association says its efforts to find out what is proposed have been met with silence.

According to the BMA, the 13 areas have submitted their proposals to NHS England and have been told to “get on” with delivering them.

The BMA has sent Freedom of Information requests to NHS Improvement and to all 13 areas – but none has provided “significant details” of their plans, it says.

The proposals involve large areas of London and of the west country as well as districts such as Lancashire, Staffordshire and Humberside.

The areas involved are Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Cheshire and Merseyside, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly, Devon, Lancashire and South Cumbria (Morecambe Bay), North Central London, North West London, South East London, Somerset, Staffordshire, Sussex and East Surrey together with Humber, Coast and Vale – representing 13 of the 44 Sustainability and Transformation Plan areas in England.

GPs in Staffordshire are already in uproar over some of the proposals for community care.

Dr David Wrigley, BMA deputy chair, said: “These plans could have serious consequences for doctors working on the frontline and for the care and treatment patients receive and can expect in hospitals and GP surgeries in these areas.

“It is bad enough that brutal cuts could threaten the services but it is totally unacceptable that proposals of this scale, which would affect large numbers of patients, are shrouded in such secrecy.”

The BMA says it has spoken to an unnamed chair of an NHS Trust, who said: “We were descended on and asked to think the unthinkable in no time at all. The NHS seems to go into a zone of secrecy as an automatic reaction.

“That’s the thing that really upsets me – the secrecy of it all and the ridiculous pace in which solutions are to be crafted and agreed. It’s the management culture too – it’s all hierarchical power and bullying.”