Up to 100 jobs are under threat after a company announced plans to relocate one of its Ayrshire factories to China.

BDF Healthcare, which produces medical equipment and currently runs plants in Girvan and Patna, has proposed that one of its manufacturing sites should close as part of cost cutting measures.

Employees first heard of the news after they were issued a letter on Tuesday informing them of plans to shut down one of the Ayrshire factories.

The letter read: "As a business we have a strong and reasonably stable customer base. We have been able to grow sales, however as more of our competitors have moved their own production to China for lower costs, our growth outlook has more recently been limited to products being produced overseas.

"We have had some success in managing our cost base, in particular our raw materials, however we remain behind our profit expectation.

"We have established that if we move more production toward China and reduce our UK overheads, both plant and labour, this would deliver a 15% reduction in our cost base.

"As a result, we have developed a proposal for our future business model."

BDF will now enter into a 30-day consultation period where they will listen to workers' concerns but it is expected that the proposal to shut down either Girvan or Patna will proceed as planned.

One plant will remain open as part of the plans, but up to 100 workers are expected to be affected by any potential closure.

Alistair Hopkins, a spokesperson from parent group Berendsen UK, said: "We're looking to further enhance our production option in China. There's a consultation process that's started and we're going to look where that takes us.

"We'll have to see if there are any better opportunities for how we go forward from here."

Asked if there was any message for employees worried about their future, Mr Hopkins commented: "We always like staff to be positively engaged in the process so that their views can be heard."