A HOSPITAL doctor has backed moves to offer long-serving consultants paid breaks of up to three months in a bid to keep them in the NHS.

Dr Keatley Adams, a consultant physician at the Royal Bolton Hospital, said health workers suffered "battle fatigue" caused by working long, stressful hours.

He believes a plan to offer "sabbaticals" of between two to three months to consultants who have completed 20 years service would reward hard-working professionals. And he is keen to have one himself.

But he warned the Government: "Don't attach any strings."

Dr Adams, aged 54, has been a consultant in Bolton for 17 years.

He said the last decade has seen workloads increase dramatically to the point where there has been a brain drain away from the NHS into private health care.

"After a number of years," he said, "young doctors just don't want to stay in the national health service and there are many medical students who want to go straight to private employment.

"The NHS, while rewarding, is pressurised and stressful. Sabbaticals would be a good 'thank you' for people's hard work and it will keep people in the profession for longer. It would certainly work for me."

Last year consultants in England voted by two to one to reject a new NHS contract which would have given them a substantial pay rise in return for making evenings and weekends part of their core working week.

A quarter of a billion pounds had been set aside to implement the contract and the Government now intends to use some of this money to fund sabbaticals instead. The scheme would come in from 2005-6 and initially be offered to 800 consultants nationwide who have completed 20 years of service.

During their sabbaticals, the consultants' workload would be covered by locums, paid for using an annual fund of £15 million.

Eventually the Government hopes to extend the scheme to wider numbers of consultants and reduce the threshold to 15 years service.

Dr Adams said: "I would like to see this scheme extended to all health care workers. It's a good idea. People could use the time to either visit other health centres perhaps in other countries or they could just sit back and relax to recharge their batteries.

"Only by treating us as professionals will the Government entice us to stay in the NHS."

Dr Paul Miller, the newly elected chairman of the BMA consultants' committee, said: "We applaud moves to reward those who work hardest and most intensively for the NHS."

Karen Jennings, Unison's head of health, said: "Sabbaticals are a good idea.

"Unfortunately it is not just senior consultants who feel the strain working in the NHS. Unison believes that if this scheme were extended to all health workers it would help tackle burn-out and allow people to re-charge their batteries."