Where are they coming from?

South Africa - 1,460 Australia - 1,166 Philippines - 1,052 New Zealand - 461 Finland - 279 Spain - 213

Statistics from the nursing regulatory body the UKCC found that 7,361 nurses and midwives from abroad registered to work in the UK for the first time in the year ending in March.

This is a 48% increase on the previous year, making it the highest influx of foreign nurses ever recorded.

The UKCC receives 1,000 enquiries every week from overseas nurses and has had to recruit extra administrative staff to cope with the demand.

Although a massive government campaign to recruit new nurses from the UK, and tempt others to return to NHS wards, there is still a chronic shortage in many areas of the country.

The NHS has been accused of stunting already fragile healthcare systems by taking nurses from less-developed countries.

NHS bosses recently ordered hospitals not to recruit from countries known to have their own nurse shortages unless an approved exchange programme was in place.

A spokesman for the Royal College of Nursing said that, with a three or four year time delay before any newly-attracted nurses could be trained up, the use of overseas nurses was likely to remain commonplace.

She said: "The government's recruitment campaign is a good start, but we have to remember that there are 17,000 vacancies.

"We simply can't fill these simply by recruiting in the UK."

Only 35% of applicants for UK registration who come from outside the EU are accepted first time, with many rejected or having to take extra courses, often linked to improving language skills.

Of all the foreign nurses, 1,416 came from European Union countries, where the largest supplier was Finland, with 279 workers coming to the UK.

Germany supplied 259 nurses, Ireland 234 and Spain 213, with Spain seeing a massive increase on the previous year.

South Africa saw an exodus of 1,460 nurses to the UK, Australia 1,166, the Philippines 1,052 and New Zealand 461.

Paul Hutchinson, UKCC Director of Business Systems said: "This is a phenomenal increase.

"We are currently looking at ways in which we can fast track some applicants without compromising existing standards.

"If employers are short of general nurses, EU countries could reasonably be seen as the quickest way to fill the gap as large numbers of practitioners from non-EU countries have to take adaption courses of up to six months before they are able to get on the register."