Exhausted doctors and nurses are being driven out of an overstretched health service, NHS leaders admit

The NHS is to begin a global recruitment drive for tens of thousands of foreign nurses over the next five years as it struggles to fill gaps on wards.

In a strategy to boost staffing, leaked to The Times, NHS leaders have conceded that exhausted doctors and nurses are being driven out of an overstretched health service because of a failure to plan for the extra staff needed to care for an ageing population.

However, the plan accepts that despite the international hiring campaign and promises to be nicer to present staff, there is little chance of ending shortages for at least five years.

Countries to be targeted are likely to include the Philippines, India, Ireland and Australia, from where the NHS already recruits