Senior doctors have warned that consultants could be gagged from exposing wrongdoing by their new contracts.

The row over new pay and conditions for top consultants deepened on Friday after consultants' leaders warned the new model contract prevented doctors from blowing the whistle on politically driven waiting list fiddles.

Relations between doctors and health secretary Alan Milburn had already hit a low after doctors in England voted against the new NHS contract.

Milburn has threatened to impose the contracts at local level - a process that will begin in the beginning of this month.

But this may now be in doubt after the BMA revealed the new contract warns "you have an obligation not to disclose any information of a confidential nature concerning patients, employees, contractors or the confidential business of this organisation".

"Any disclosure other than to members of NHS staff immediately and properly concerned, or as required or permitted by law, will render you subject to disciplinary action and could be regarded as gross misconduct and make you liable for dismissal.''

Nizam Mamode, joint deputy chairman of the BMA's central consultants and specialists committee, claimed the clause would prevent doctors highlighting problems in the NHS.

"This goes way beyond patient confidentiality," he said."It would mean, for example that all the things we've been saying recently about managers fiddling figures and employing extra staff while surveys are taking place to meet targets, would not come out.''

The BMA warned that the new contract, which includes provisions for weekend working, had failed to solve any of the problems that led to the negative vote by doctors.