Thousands of nurses are leaving Britain to work abroad after being headhunted by international recruitment teams, The Times has learnt.

Hospitals and nursing agencies in Australia and other countries are encouraging British health workers to emigrate in an attempt to capitalise on a shortage of jobs in the NHS, the country’s top nurse has said.

Many local NHS trusts have imposed a recruitment freeze as the health service struggles to balance its books before the end of the financial year.

An estimated 20,000 nursing posts have been cut in hospitals and surgeries across the country, leaving many newly qualified nurses out of work.

In an interview with The Times, Peter Carter, the new general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, described the situation as shambolic, saying that he knew of nearly 100 nurses from the West Midlands alone who left to work in Australia this week.

This is despite an anticipated shortfall of 14,000 trained nurses in the NHS by 2010, he said.

Last year, about 3,000 nurses and midwives left Britain to work in Australia — more than double the number making the same trip ten years ago — making it the most popular destination for the 8,000 nurses who emigrated to work abroad.

“There is currently a high-profile drive from Australia into the UK to recruit nurses and other health workers,” Dr Carter said. “They have a skills shortage so they’ve looked worldwide, seen what is happening in the UK with the lack of jobs and poor morale, and are coming here rather than other countries in order to capitalise on that.

“All the indications are that hundreds of nurses who have been trained at the taxpayer’s expense — some newly qualified, some with 10, 15 years’ experience — have decided to jump ship for what they see as a better deal abroad. That’s rather sad in my view.”

Dr Carter said that Britain was facing a “massive skills shortage” as a result of the Government’s “yo-yo work-force planning” and predicted that British hospitals would soon have to recruit nurses from abroad to make up staff numbers.

About 180,000 British nurses are due to retire over the next ten years, according to a leaked government report last month.

In addition, a total of 7,772 nurses and midwives left Britain during the last financial year, compared with 3,400 in 1997-98, according to figures compiled by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which registers those working in the UK.

Dr Carter said that he expected this figure to increase this year in the climate of a recruitment freeze.

“British nurses are in a situation where there are widespread cutbacks and more people are being asked to do more with less. And I can understand why they might look at their options,” he said.

“To be offered comparable salaries, paid travel expenses and a higher quality of life in Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne means many will jump at the chance, because the impression is that the Australian healthcare economy is booming compared to ours.”

Dr Carter also said that much of the Government’s record investment in the health service had been squandered on needless restructuring of local health authorities.

“Funding for the health service has more than doubled since Labour came to power,” he said. “So how is it that in 2007 after that ten-year investment, hospitals are having to take out lightbulbs and ask people to work for nothing in order to save money? The only explanation is that so much of the funding has been misdirected and wasted through poor policies and a lack of good management.”

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