Nurses' leaders have condemned the shortage of staff across the country.

The Royal College of Nursing has warned of severe imbalances in the numbers of new staff working on Britain's hospital wards.

The union, which represents 360,000 of Britain's NHS staff, added patient safety would be put at risk unless Whitehall takes action.

The warning was issued with the publication of a new RCN report that found the increase in nursing staff had not solved shortages.

Problems highlighted by the RCN were the £529 million cost of agency staff and the 20,000 nurses that leave the profession every year.

Growth across the UK varied massively with an increase in England of 11 per cent mainly due to staff recruited from abroad.

But the increase has been slower in Wales, which saw eight per cent, Northern Ireland which gained six per cent and Scotland which saw staff numbers raise by just five per cent.

"The severe imbalance in the rate of growth of the UK nursing labour workforce is putting the future of patient care at risk," said RCN general secretary Dr Beverly Malone.

The union called on the government to come up with an action plan backed by a commitment from health ministers aimed at increasing growth over the next decade.

"Nursing shortages are not unique to one country, it is a UK-wide problem. With no common UK data we are failing to understand the true extent of the UK nursing shortage whilst the four countries continue to implement individual solutions which may conflict and have a detrimental impact on patient care," Malone said.

Opposition parties seized on the report and challenged the government's claims that NHS recruitment issues were being tackled.

Shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox claimed ministers were failing to get to grips with the problems.

"Continued growth of agency nurse costs confirms that ministers are failing woefully to get to grips with the nursing crisis and are wasting taxpayers' money," said the Conservative spokesman.

"Staggeringly, over half of new nurses in 2001/02 trained overseas. In far too many cases, this has been nothing less than asset stripping some of the world's poorest countries, just to keep the NHS going."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Dr Evan Harris also warned against the reliance on recruiting foreign staff to bolster numbers.

"The increase in the number of nurses is entirely due to overseas recruitment, some of which has meant the blatant poaching of staff from the developing world," he said.

"The expansion in the number of managers is three times that of nurses, which speaks volumes about the government's preposterous obsession with initiatives, targets and spin. The most telling feature of these figures is that within five years, a quarter of our nurses will be eligible to retire."