MORE than 100 people in India are being interviewed for nursing vacancies at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

Recruitment specialists travelled to Delhi and Bangalore this week to begin the recruitment drive.

Twenty nurses from India will fill vacancies in Bolton initially.

Hospital bosses say that there will be a rolling programme of recruitment in India over the next two years and more than 50 Indian nurses in total are expected to join the Bolton staff.

The selection of the Indian recruits, the first of whom will arrive in Bolton next March, is being headed by Aasha Bhatia, recruitment and retention officer at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

The new recruits will join 47 Filipino nurses already on the payroll in Bolton.

The first Filipino group arrived in Bolton 12 months ago and a second arrived six months later -- filling vacancies which have been empty for more than two years.

A third wave of Filipino recruits were starting work this week.

Last month, the hospital's vacancies fell from more than 130 to just 25. But hospital chiefs say they are considering increasing the number of nursing jobs in busier parts of the hospital.

At a hospital board meeting, Mrs Ann Schenk, director of service development, said the numbers expected to arrive from India would mirror the number of Filipino recruits.

However, Mrs Schenk added: "We are looking at small intakes, keeping it flexible so that we can tailor recruitment to the local needs.

"We have no idea how many nurses we will need this time next year. It is very difficult to predict today what we will need next August."