EAST Lancashire Euro MP Louise Bours has called for an urgent drive to train more nurses in the UK.

She spoke out after a report for Health Service Journal showed almost three-quarters of hospital trusts have been driven to recruiting overseas.

MORE TOP STORIES:

The Blackburn college-educated UKIP health spokeswoman said: “While we have always had some foreign nurses working in the NHS, it is now getting out of control and we cannot go ignoring the situation.

“This shortage of home-grown registered nurses should never have been allowed to develop and cutting 10,000 training posts since the last General Election has plainly been a massive mistake.”

“ I believe one of the ways to address this is to scrap the insistence on university degrees.

“Recruiting staff from abroad carries the inherent risk that poor English skills could lead to misunderstandings and mistakes. It also adds to the costs of recruitment, money which should be spent on training and paying British nurses.”