Sunderland City Hospitals NHS Trust is flying in the 48 nurses to combat a long-standing shortage which has left staff over-worked and many wards struggling to function properly.

The appointments come after trust officials attended a recruitment fair in South Africa in November.

South Africa is a prime recruiting base because recent cuts in the country's health service has left it with a surplus number of nurses.

The Sunderland City Hospitals NHS Trust has signed nurses recruited in South Africa for 12- and 15-month contracts. They will be flown into the North East in groups from January 23.

The trust said it had explored countless avenues as part of a recruiting campaign, including even trying to woo retired nurses back into their jobs.

Action was needed

Carol Ringrow claimed vacancies could not be filled in the UK

Director of Nursing Carol Ringrow said: "The nurses are not around locally or nationally to fill the vacancies, so in order to make sure that our nurses do not keep working extra hours and become too tired we decided to look further afield.

"There is a high standard of nurse education in South Africa and also they are an English speaking people."

Ms Ringrow admitted that it would cost a lot of money to fly in the nurses from South Africa, but she said the hospital had already wasted a significant amount advertising in vain in specialist journals.

She said the new nurses would also save the hospital money in overtime payments.

The latest recruitment drive in South Africa comes as the Royal College of Nursing has warned that the NHS is facing its worst shortage of nurses for 25 years.

Its figures show there are almost 8,000 vacancies within the health service.

A RCN spokeswoman said: "Hospital trusts have to do something to solve the recruitment crisis, and to recruit nurses from abroad is understandable.

"We have always had an exchange of nurses with other countries and that is a good thing, but not when it is done as a way to shore up the NHS."