The vast majority of consultants at Barnet, Chase Farm and Royal Free hospitals will have signed their new NHS contracts by the end of the month.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has been complaining that less than half of all trusts in England met an April 30 deadline to implement the new deals for consultants which were agreed last year. It cited the main reasons for the delay as interference' from strategic health authorities and funding difficulties.

But Nick Samuels, director of communications at Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust, said the process was going well.

"Seventy-two per cent of our consultants say they want to be put on the new contract rather than the old one. All new consultants automatically go on to it," he said.

"Both sides think it's a good move forward in terms of updating a contractual relationship that dates from 1947 and is based on working styles and technology of 50 years ago."

A spokeswoman for the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead said that, out of 210 consultants, 85 per cent had expressed an interest in signing up. She said 43 of those will sign contracts by the end of this week and the rest by the end of May.

Ministers hope the contract, designed to allow doctors to work more flexibly, will help cut NHS waiting times.