Last year, almost half (45 per cent) of all new entrants to the Nursing and Midwifery Council were foreign recruits. Over the past three years, some 40,000 foreigners have been recruited as registered nurses.

Despite this, there are still 25,000 or so vacancies.

Of about 650,000 registered nurses working in Britain, 20,000 are from the Philippines. But there are other Filipinos working in private care homes, and it is estimated that, in total, some 40,000 Filipinos are in Britain as nurses.

Many come because of the high wages. In the Philippines, a nurse makes an average of £100 (S$318) a month. Here, they can make more than 10 times that sum (£1,200 to £1,500 a month).

Recruitment from countries such as South Africa, which itself is facing a nursing shortage, has been deliberately limited.

But the Philippines maintains that it trains more nurses than required at home. And, in addition, the nurses speak fluent English. No wonder that it has become a favourite recruitment ground.

But some recruitment agencies, however, have come under fire for using dubious means to woo Filipino nurses to Britain.

Filipino Allan Del Rosario, for one, was excited when he was recruited for a full-time nursing job in Britain. He paid his agency a £2,000 (S$6,630) placement fee and £1,200 for an adaptation course that would familiarise him with the working conditions here.

A surprise awaited him - he was given a student visa, which allowed him to work only 20 hours a week. So, if he were to take up full-time employment, he would be doing so illegally.

When he finally arrived, the qualified nurse was shocked to find that his sleeping quarters was to be an old mattress on the floor of a walk-in closet in a private nursing home in South London.

'I am not a student, I am a qualified nurse with many years of experience, working to a high level in hospitals in the Philippines,' he recently told delegates to the annual conference of Unison, Britain's largest public service union.

'I was very surprised to get a student visa, and it made me feel very frightened. I honestly felt helpless. I felt paralysed as a person and as a professional,' he said.

His situation has since been sorted out and he has found a job at Portsmouth Hospital.

Unison pointed out that overseas nurses are 'at the mercy of unscrupulous employment agencies and vulnerable to exploitation'.

Most foreign nurses come in legitimately, but the union is now calling for the British government to 'close a serious legal loophole' to stop recruitment agencies from bringing in qualified nurses using student visas, because such visas could lead to the deportation of the nurses.

The agencies charge between £2,000 and £2,500 to find jobs for the recruits and £1,200 for adaptation courses.

In addition, recruits have to pay £60 a week for rent, and are paid only £4.75 for an hour's work. In comparison, a qualified British nurse makes £8.25 an hour.

Foreign nurses recruited legitimately do not have to pay for the adaptation courses, and are supposed to be paid the same salary as a British nurse once the course is completed.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said that some private care home owners are exploiting nurses by making them 'clean, cook and do laundry' instead of using their nursing skills.

'They are so scared that they will be kicked out of the country because of their dodgy student status that they feel powerless to complain.

'It brings shame to the government that they are allowing qualified nurses to be treated in this dreadful way, when we know the NHS is crying out for skilled nursing staff,' he said.

The issue was also raised by the nursing regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which noted that in some cases, nurses are being offered placements in 'non-approved settings', and that some nursing homes are exceeding the number of nurses they are allowed to supervise at one time.

Mr Jonathan Asbridge, president of the council, said: 'Filipino nurses make a valuable contribution to health care in the UK. We find them to be professional and kind carers. But we are concerned that they may be lured into signing up for poorly paid positions that offer inadequate training and will not lead to them being admitted to the UK nursing register.'