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LONDON -- British doctors staged their first strike in nearly 40 years Thursday over plans to increase the amount they pay into their pension fund and make them work until they are 68, ITV News reported.

The government says doctors would receive more than $105,000 a year after the age of 68 under its proposals.

However the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, says the highest earning doctors will have to pay 14.5 percent of their pay into the pension fund by 2014, compared with 8.5 percent in March 2012.

They also claim the new deal would actually leave retired doctors worse off.

Read more stories from ITV News

ITV News reported that early polls suggested as few as 22 percent of the BMA's more than 100,000 members were taking part in the strike.

"Nobody is happy about taking any kind of action that impacts adversely on patients. There has been a lot of soul searching in the BMA, but we have to represent our members' views and nearly three-quarters of those who voted wanted to take this kind of action because they were so angry about what was happening to their pensions," Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA, told ITV News.

U.K. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told the station that up to 1.25 million doctor appointments could have to be delayed.

He said the BMA was "out on their own" because other trade unions in the U.K.'s public health service had agreed to a new deal "even if they didn't want to increase contributions for their pensions."

ITV News is NBC's U.K. partner.

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Handout / Reuters

Aid worker Helen Johnston, seen in this undated family photograph released by Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was rescued from her Taliban captors Saturday.

A NATO rescue team dropped by helicopter in remote mountains of northern Afghanistan early on Saturday freed four aid workers, including two doctors, who had been seized by the Taliban last month, the alliance said. 

The aid workers, employed by Swiss-based Medair, were en route to flood-stricken parts of Badakhshan province when they were kidnapped. 

NATO forces entered the area under cover of darkness and after confirming the presence of the hostages, carried out a successful raid to free them, Lieutenant Commander Brian Badura, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) told Reuters. 

The rescue team suffered no casualties in the operation, Badura said. The kidnappers were armed with heavy machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades. 

Shamsul Rahman Shams, the deputy governor of Badakhshan, said five men who were holding the aid workers were killed in the operation. 

 "It was an extraordinarily brave, breathtaking even, operation that our troops had to carry out," U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said, according to BBC News. "I pay tribute to their skill and dedication."

'Swift and brutal end'
He added anyone who kidnapped British citizens could expect "a swift and brutal end."

A statement from ISAF identified the hostage-takers as members of the Taliban, who have stepped up violence across the country as foreign combat forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014. 

"This morning's mission, conducted by coalition forces, exemplifies our collective and unwavering commitment to defeat the Taliban," General John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said. 

Seven killed in attack on NATO base in Afghanistan

The alliance identified the two foreigners freed as Helen Johnston and Moragwe Oirere, who along with two Afghans worked for Medair, a humanitarian non-governmental organization based near Lausanne, Switzerland. 

The aid workers had been travelling by donkey to visit a clinic in the remote Yawan district, where the road had been destroyed by floods caused by melting snow after one of the worst Afghan winters in decades. 

Afghan forces have taken over security in the provincial capital Faizabad and some parts of Badakhshan ahead of the Western drawdown. 

Afghan authorities originally said five people had been kidnapped, but it later emerged that one of the party managed to escape from the hostage takers. 

The kidnapping of foreigners has become relatively common in parts of Afghanistan since U.S-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001, heralding a 11-year anti-insurgent war. 

In 2010, 10 foreign medical workers, including six Americans, were killed in Badakhshan in an attack blamed on insurgents. 

Other attacks have been blamed on criminal groups looking for ransom. Police in Badakhshan earlier said the kidnappers in this case were demanding money, and they appeared to be members of a criminal gang.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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