Managers and civil servants are meeting with voluntary groups to try to simplify the recruitment process, which organisations working with refugees say is too complex.

Patrick Wintour, director of the Employability Forum, which helps refugees find work, told BBC News NHS bureaucracy had caused "great difficulties".

People who come to Britain as refugees bring with them important experience and qualifications Employability Forum

"We are not arguing people should be employed because they are refugees.

"But people who come to Britain as refugees bring with them important experience and qualifications.

"And it is a waste of human potential not to make effective use of this."

Lois Archer, who runs a programme trying to recruit refugee nurses at Newham hospital, said because many already lived in east London, they were more likely than other recruits from overseas to stay in jobs.

We have got to be able to put safe nurses on our registers so patients feel confident that wherever a nurse comes from she should be safe to practice NMC

But she admitted it was harder to match their skills to particular jobs.

"It does take time - but we have acquired dependable and competent nurses."

But Sarah Thewliss, the chief executive of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates nursing, said it had to balance greater flexibility with a need to protect patients.

"We have got to be able to put safe nurses on our registers so patients feel confident that wherever a nurse comes from she should be safe to practice."