DORSET County Hospital is struggling to fill nursing posts- so much so that it has held four recruitment days for staff in Spain and Europe this year.

It held a recruitment session last month in Spain, one of four searches for staff in the EU this year.

From the three events held previously, 12 Italian nurses have already started work and nine are coming soon. Seven nurses from Spain will be joining the hospital.

It has prompted concern from patient governors and unions, who say the situation at DCH echoes what is going on across the NHS.

Helen Eccles, south west regional head of health for Unison, said: "DCH is not unique; it is true to say that every acute trust in the South West is struggling to recruit and retain registered nurses."

A quick scroll through recruitment pages shows 14 other foundation trusts holding recruitment days abroad within the next month or so.

Helen said there is low morale in the NHS, exacerbated by worries that the government's plans for a 'seven-day health service' will come at the price of unsociable hours pay.

"Nurses haven't had a real-time pay rise in a number of years. That is affecting morale. The government needs to properly invest in its health service and start giving health care staff the remuneration they deserve.

£People working in the health service believe in a health service that delivers the needs of the patient they serve. But David Cameron's plan seems to be that with the same level of staff, they will deliver a seven-day service with the same envelope of money.

"A number of nurses have said 'if you remove unsociable hours pay we won't be able to afford to continue to work for the NHS.'

"We should not be having to go abroad to find staff. We should be looking at how we retain staff and helping them develop."

The cost of sending two interviewers to an overseas recruitment event is approximately £500- the hospital uses economy flights and budget hotels.

Patient governor Derek Julian said staff at the hospital do an excellent job, but employment and retention needs to be looked at on a national level and said the worry with employing foreign nurses is that they will "Why is it that in this country in this day and age we are not getting enough nurses through?

"Do you really need academic qualifications to be a nurse?

"It used to be that nurses got the best training and they were on the wards- surely we could revert back to a similar scheme?

"More young people need to be encouraged in to nursing, especially boys who are not really told it is a profession for them."

Dorset County Hospital’s director of nursing Alison Tong said: “We are committed to ensuring our patients receive safe and effective care from our nursing workforce.

“It has been widely reported locally and nationally that there is a shortage of registered nurses. In the future this position will be addressed by the increased number of students in training; currently there is a shortage.

“We are actively recruiting across the UK but this alone will not meet our needs. It is for this reason that we have chosen to recruit in the EU.

“We have been delighted by the high calibre and caring staff that we have recruited and they have been warmly received by our existing workforce.

“The number of nurses that we have recruited from the EU equates to around five per cent of our workforce.

“We have chosen to recruit overseas nurses using our own staff to interview in the country as I believe this enables us to recruit the highest calibre staff at the lowest cost.”