A VICAR and doctor from York will give up his roles in North Yorkshire this week.

The Revd Dr Steve Benford has worked as an anaesthetist at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, for two days a week at the same time as being Vicar of St Luke's Church in Burton Stone Lane for ten years.

The 53-year-old was a GP in New Zealand, where he met his wife Lorraine, and in Leicester, before he was ordained while working full-time at the Friarage Hospital in 2000, but has recently been appointed full-time vicar in the parish of St Joseph the Worker in Northolt, north-west London, and will leave Yorkshire this weekend.

St Luke's Reader Martin Sheppard said: "Steve's dual role at St Luke's and the hospital has been a very creative bit of thinking - St Luke's has shared its Vicar with the chaplain's role at York Hospital in the past and that link with the healing professions has continued in Steve.

"We will miss Steve's prayerfulness and commitment to the parish, and the welcome he and Lorraine have offered to everyone around them. Even though Steve is ending his 28-year career in medicine, we know him as a healer and a carer to his fingertips and he goes to Northolt with our thanks and our prayers."

Steve Benford's last Sunday at St Luke's is this weekend, and will include Parish Communion at 10am, and a celebratory Pimms and Hymns evening at 6.30pm.