The hospital job cuts have been described as "knee-jerk"

The region's Royal College of Nursing (RCN) director said about 4,000 student nurses due to graduate in the next two months will not have jobs to go to.

Anne Leedham Smith said that is on top of 700 named posts already being cut.

The Department of Health said there were jobs for newly qualified staff but there was now greater competition.

Ms Smith said most of the trusts battling with a deficit in the region had introduced a recruitment freeze.

'Knee jerk policy'

"Over this year 4,000 nurses will be qualifying in the West Midlands and majority will not get jobs," she said.

"The dreadful thing about it is the government did a huge, expensive recruitment drive about how wonderful it is to become nurses.

"Those nurses are now qualifying but there is no job for them."

Some graduates will not always be able to find the job they want Department of Health

She said student nurses are unlikely to continue their career if they are unable to get into the profession to complete their registration and warned a third of nurses in the region will be retiring in the next 12 months.

"This is such a knee-jerk short-term policy by the government that come November there will be a shortage of nurses and a mass panic as to how are we going to recruit more nurses," she said.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said increased competition was a consequence of measures to reduce vacancy rates but the situation varied around the country and in different clinical specialities.

"We still need more newly qualified staff to replace those who retire or take career breaks but for some graduates they will not always be able to find the job they want in the location they want and may need to be more flexible," he said.