By Chris Hogg BBC Health Correspondent

Efforts to recruit nurses abroad have boosted the NHS workforce and eased the pressure in many hospitals.

But it has also led to criticism that Britain is exploiting developing countries by poaching their best staff.

Next week civil servants, NHS managers and voluntary groups will get together to consider how to make best use of a different source of trained staff who are already in this country but who often find it difficult to get a job here.

Beatrice was an experienced ward sister in a hospital in the Congo when she and her husband were forced to leave to seek asylum in Britain.

They were granted refugee status which meant they could start looking for work.

I don't know why I can be stopped from working as a nurse just because of an English test. Beatrice

So nearly three years ago she set about trying to restart her nursing career and join the NHS.

She'd brought with her evidence of her professional qualifications and experience.

The problem was that although her spoken English is very good she couldn't get the mark she needed in the standard English test the authorities required.

She has failed three times.

"It's like a barrier for me," she said.

"I worked for 19 years as a nurse in my country so I don't know why I can be stopped from working as a nurse just because of an English test.

"If it was nursing I could understand, but my English is improving."

Checks required

Of course you need checks to ensure a nurse can operate safely within a hospital.

But some organisations who work with refugees say at the moment many of the recruitment processes in the health service don't take enough account of the difficulties they face.

The director of the Employability Forum, an organisation which helps refugees to find work, is Patrick Wintour.

We've got to be able to put safe nurses on our register Sarah Thewlis

"There is real evidence that people experience great difficulties in terms of getting into work," he said.

Many were frustrated by the bureaucracy in the health service, the need to deal with the professional bodies and the need to understand how employers set about recruiting people as nurses.

The chief executive of the body which regulates nursing, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, rejects the idea that the complexity of its registration process discriminates against refugees.

Patient safety

Sarah Thewlis says they are trying to be more flexible with applicants from abroad, but they need to protect patient safety.

"We've got to be able to put safe nurses on our register so that patients feel confident that wherever a nurse comes from she should be on the register and should be safe to practice."

So why bother, if you're an employer, to take on the extra hassle of recruiting the refugee community?

At Newham hospital in East London Lois Archer is in charge of a programme which takes a pro-active approach.

The benefits are clear she says. Refugee nurses are more likely to stay at the hospital than workers from overseas, because they already live in the area.

But it does require more effort to match their skills to a job.

"It does work, it does take a little while sometimes for staff to see the benefit, but we have seen over the last two to three years that we have acquired dependable and competent nurses who can deliver a service to patients."

Sizeable pool

Nobody knows exactly how big the pool of refugee nurses in the UK might be.

But a database set up several months ago by the British Medical Association currently contains 839 refugee doctors.

Anecdotal evidence from voluntary groups suggests the figure for nurses would be much higher.

But Patrick Wintour from the Employability Forum fears that the current difficulties over asylum seekers may lead to resistance in many quarters if the NHS is perceived as trying to make it easier for refugees to find jobs.

"We're working in a very difficult climate at the moment.

"But we are not arguing that people should be employed because they're refugees, we're simply arguing that people who come to Britain as refugees bring with them important experience and qualifications and that it's a waste of human potential not to make effective use of this."

Health Minister Jacqui Smith said the government had invested �1million in schemes designed to help refugee nurses gain work in the NHS.