An exodus of doctors, including Indian doctors, from the National Health Service in Britain within three years is on the cards after introduction of a new contract facilitating them to retire early on full pension.
The new consultants' contract is designed to give doctors greater rewards for the hours they work, replacing a fixed-salary system.
Stephen Campion, chief executive of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, maintained that pension benefits would encourage only doctors already disillusioned with the NHS to call time on their careers.
Worst-affected specialisations are likely to include radiography, pathology, paediatrics and psychiatry, which all suffer from severe staff shortages.
"The issue of people retiring early from the NHS has been exacerbated by this," he said.
At the same time doctors' leaders are warning that by 2007 nearly 4,000 senior consultants will have little or no financial incentive to continue working for the NHS.
"A mass exodus will exacerbate staffing problems in the service, which at present has a shortfall of 10,000 hospital doctors," a spokesman of Doctors said.
Paul Miller, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants' committee, said: "You could find you go into work on April 1, 2007 and every consultant over the age of 60 in the NHS has retired."
"The majority will have hit their best point financially, and will want to go. It could be a retirement time bomb."
