It is the first time the authority has put a concrete proposal on paper since it began last-ditch negotiations with the union, whose case is scheduled to be heard in the High Court from January 16.

The matter is expected to be close to the top of the agenda at today's authority board meeting. Members will also discuss the selection of a new chief executive.

The authority had earlier offered other relief measures, including capping doctors' working hours at less than 65 a week within three years, a pay rise for contract doctors, and lengthening doctors' contracts from three to nine years to give them sufficient time to complete specialist training.

The association is pushing for a rest day every week and time off as compensation for working on public holidays. It also wants the authority to cut the number of working hours to 44 a week - the standard in Europe. Some doctors complain they have to work more than 70 hours a week and sometimes more than 36 hours at a stretch.

The association filed a claim on behalf of 165 doctors in the Labour Tribunal in March 2002, for public holidays and rest days worked since 1996. The tribunal estimated at the time that if the claim applied to all public doctors, the cost would exceed $60 million. The tribunal ruled the case was too big for it to hear and must be dealt with by the Court of First Instance.

Three doctors, one of whom has quit, will use their court cases as test cases.

A medical source said the union regarded the latest concession as too small.

'It is just a small candy, we don't think it is a generous offer by just giving us a few days off a year. We have consulted some doctors and no one likes it,' the source said.

The working hours of doctors in public hospitals vary. Those in accident and emergency departments work the least number of hours - about 44 a week - as they work a three-shift system. But a surgeon, for example, can work as many as 90 hours a week, as they are on call for emergency operations. The source said it was unfair to standardise the number of compensatory holidays based on speciality.

'The formula is too loose and arbitrary. Even in the same speciality, doctors have different workloads. Doctors are asking for a system where they would be rewarded according to the individual's workload.'

The association's president, Shea Tat-ming, did not comment directly on the authority's offer.

'Whatever proposals there are, such as cutting working hours or extra holidays, we don't want just figures on paper, we want the authority to tell us how it will change the system and manpower allocation to achieve those figures,' Dr Shea said. 'It will be good to limit working hours to 44 hours a week, but will it mean a doctor who is now seeing 10 patients an hour will have to see 20 patients?'