South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust employs a large number of consultants and senior medical staff from outside of Britain and Europe.

But this could come to an end as immigration rules are tightened to cut the numbers of migrant workers.

Hospital consultants from outside Europe will be stopped from taking up posts in the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed.

He said the Government's points-based system is being tightened to remove non-EU hospital consultants, civil and aircraft engineers, and ship's officers from a list of in-demand professions.

Britain has had to recruit highly-skilled medical staff from overseas in recent years, but Mr Brown said training will be stepped up to close the skills gap in the UK.

Ian Frame, executive director of personnel and organisational development at South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We have a large number of consultant and other senior medical staff from outside of Europe employed as part of our Trust team.

"They provide an excellent service and are integral to the care we provide.

"We have noticed that, in more recent times, a higher number of British-trained doctors have started to apply for our posts.

"However, there are posts in some specialities which are hard to fill if they become vacant, and we can see potential difficulties ahead if we are no longer able to consider applicants from outside of Europe."

Mr Brown said "a huge amount" has been done to train a new generation of medical staff from the UK, so the need for foreign doctors has fallen.

He added: "There is a new determination to train people in the skills that we need.

"We want to ensure that we don't have to bring to the country people when we can develop those skills ourselves."