The latest recruiting drive for nurses in Bradford hospitals is an indication of the extent to which levels of service in the NHS are under threat. There are a staggering 1,200 nursing vacancies across West Yorkshire, and although Bradford itself has a lower-than-average vacancy rate among qualified nurses, health visitors and midwives, that level is likely to rise.

The Royal College of Nursing warns that almost 25 per cent of nurses will retire in the next few years and says the NHS is struggling to retain existing staff.

The size of the shortfall reveals to what extent the Government has been too slow in responding to the needs of the NHS. Even the huge increases in spending on the service announced in the Chancellor's Budget this week will not ease the problem for years to come.

Meanwhile, the increase in National Insurance contributions will not do much to encourage existing nurses to stay on unless the Government is also prepared to make up the reduction in their net salary with well-above-inflation pay rises.

So it's no surprise that the district's hospitals are having to repeat and expand the recruiting exercise they carried out 18 months ago and once again look elsewhere to find qualified people to fill the vacancies. Bradford already has a history of employing nurses from abroad to ease the pressure in certain areas. Now Airedale is following suit after vacancies in acute services reached an all-time high.

We can only hope that five years from now there will be enough new nurses coming into the service to avoid this having to go on indefinitely.