Health chiefs have defended a policy of hiring Filipino nurses following claims that the practice is leading to hospital closures in the Third World country.

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals Trust has recruited around 150 Filipino nurses in recent years, but Jaime Galvez Tan, a former Philippines health secretary and now professor at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, has warned of the collapse of his country's health system within the next five years unless the loss of nurses is halted.

The professor said: "A doctor here earns only £250 a month. So even if I plead with my doctors and nurses not to leave, I cannot compete with the salary that the UK gives.

"At least 2,000 doctors are now entering the nursing profession, because it is easier for a nurse (than a doctor) to enter the UK."

A Worthing Hospital spokeswoman said: "The trust's recruitment initiatives are in line with the Department of Health's international and ethical recruitment.

"We would never go to a country to recruit that we were advised by the Department of Health not to go to.

"There have been times in the past when we have been advised not to go to certain countries and we would not."

The Department of Health says there is a surplus of nurses in the Philippines. Last month the two countries signed an agreement to extend recruitment.

In February Alan Milburn, then health secretary, assured the Commons after complaints of staff poaching from South Africa: "We do not actively recruit from developing countries."

More than 16,000 Filipino nurses have registered to work in Britain in the past three years, and Filipinos make up the largest group of foreign nurses, helping to plug a shortfall of 35,000 nursing staff in British hospitals.

A typical salary for a nurse in the Philippines is about £150 a month compared with about £1,000 in Britain.

A health department spokeswoman told The Argus: "We operate an ethical recruitment policy. We don't recruit from developing countries.

"The exception to that is India and the Philippines. We have an agreement with them saying we can recruit from their countries because there is a surplus of qualified nurses."