HEALTH bosses who have organised a pioneering new scheme to bring Spanish GPs to East Lancashire believe they have the prescription for success.

The national pilot, which saw 24 Spanish-trained GPs visit the north west for interviews this weekend, will continue every three months until, they hope, all vacancies are filled.

Dr Tony Mathie, Merseyside-based government adviser on GP recruitment, said the scheme was the shot in the arm doctor recruitment needed in Britain to get it back to fighting fitness.

"It is very important that this works for us because we need the doctors. This country, and especially the north west, has one of the lowest numbers of doctors per population of any developed country in the world -- you have to go to Kazakstan to find a lower number."

Health authorities across the region are competing to attract the GPs to fill their vacancies, with three practices in East Lancashire vying for urgent candidates -- one in Blackburn, one in Burnley and one in Pendle.

There are 15 vacancies in total in the area, which bosses hope to fill in the next few months when other doctors are brought over from Spain in the next round of interviews.

Mr Mathie said: "There is a huge moral dilemma of going to places that don't have enough doctors and taking them for your own country.

"With this scheme, we have an agreement between the Spanish government and our government that this is what both countries need."

But, he said, the scheme had the full backing of local GPs.

"They are all really enthusiastic. They want to be involved in this scheme and, for some who want to take these GPs, we hope they will click together."

The scheme, which is the blueprint for the rest of the country to follow in six months' time, will see the Spanish GPs given the full local treatment when they arrive in February, including three months' training, mentors and constant support to help them settle into their new roles.

They will be put into training practices which are fully staffed for three months before choosing their own practice.

And they will also be given language help by experts from Liverpool University, while also being prepared for local accents through role play interviews with trained actors posing as patients.

But, Dr Mathie said, he was confident all the doctors would make the grade. "It is just conceivable that one or two of these candidates will not want to stay but I think it is very unlikely.

"We will be giving them full support, because we have learned lessons from our experience in the 60s and 70s. We brought people over from India to be doctors and then just left them. They have been isolated and ignored and consequently have not performed as well as they should in some cases.

"It is completely unreasonable to expect these doctors to walk off the boat and go straight to work in a practice."

Twenty-eight-year-old Dr Carmen Lenza, from Madrid, said she hoped the scheme would give her a sense of stability after only being able to find temporary work in her home country.

"I have been very lucky, always working, but having a contract that only lasts two weeks here and one week here is not right. The patients need to see one face."

The 24 GPs brought over will start their training contracts in the north west in February, and take up their new GP positions in May.