The BBC's Richard Hannaford: 'The situation will take time to solve'

Speaking after the release of figures showing a dramatic fall in the number of people training to be nurses, Mr Dobson said incentives needed to be raised. This included higher salaries, more flexible working and extended responsibilities.

The government aims to put an extra 15,000 nurses in hospitals over the next three years, and create 6,000 new training places. But the number of new recruits has declined by 15% in the last four years, according to research by the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (ENB).

Nursing recruitment has been falling for years

The ENB, which approves nursing courses, said 45,589 nurses were training in March 1998 - 2,447 less than in the previous year, and down 8,188 on 1994.

Incentives to boost numbers

Health Secretary Frank Dobson said he was "concerned" by the figures but they reflected a trend that would take time to turn round.

Frank Dobson: "Pay is a big problem"

"When I made my promise that we were going to recruit 15,000 extra nurses I knew what had been happening to nurse recruitment - and in this case nurse training recruits - over the last few years," he said.

"Of course it will take some time to turn round, because of course if you don't put people into training three years ago they don't come out of training now."

'Wages should rise'

He acknowledged that nurses' pay was "a big problem" but said it was not the only one.

"There are a lot of things to do with the way nurses are treated, and if we're to deal with the problem of this four-year fall in the number of people coming out of training then we're going to have to get back into nursing people who've left."

He said the government "will obviously recommend that [nurses'] wages go up" in its evidence to the independent pay review body that determines annual pay awards, but it will also say that consideration of the economy - and the Treasury's inflation target - must be taken into account.

As a way of making the profession more attractive, Mr Dobson promised last month to end the "systematic use" of short-term contracts of employment for nurses. There will also be free refresher courses.

'Government hype'

Widdecombe: How will the government do it?

Shadow Health Secretary Ann Widdecombe said Mr Dobson's plans to tackle the recruitment crisis "didn't add up to a row of beans".

The government's "spending hype is well above what they're actually doing," she said. "At the moment they're hyping up all this rhetoric about extra nurses so the public thinks 'jolly good thing'." But the government "cannot tell the public how they're going to do it."

Christine Hancock: Who'd want to be a nurse today?

Christine Hancock, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, told BBC Radio: "This is the first time ever that there've been more places available to train nurses than there have been people coming forward, so it's very worrying."

Nurses' pay was a factor in the recruitment shortfall, she said. "Pay has become more important over the last number of years. Nursing salaries have slipped behind, but also so have the other opportunities available to people with the same skills."

She added that failure to reverse the drop in numbers would mean the government failing to meet its election promises.