Senior medical staff will lose thousands of pounds under government proposals to scrap final salary pension schemes for more than one million NHS staff.

The plan, to be announced today, means that future pensions would be calculated on average career salaries, and are to be fiercely resisted by the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing.

The proposals are the latest stage of the government’s programme to reduce retirement benefits across the public sector.

Meanwhile, Britain's biggest private medical group, BMI Healthcare, has decided to bid for NHS patients.

The group hopes to win contracts to run independent treatment centres.