The UK health secretary, Alan Milburn, visited Spain last week as part of an NHS campaign to recruit doctors from abroad and to garner new ideas that might be useful to the NHS.

Mr Milburn visited a new type of Spanish hospital, known as a public health foundation, which, though owned by the state health service, is run through a private management scheme. It also has a great deal of autonomy from the state health service and can raise money from the private sector.

In November last year, Spanish health minister Celia Villalobos and Mr Milburn signed an agreement that was initially aimed at recruiting Spanish nurses to meet the NHS target for nurses in 2004. Since the agreement, 400 nurses have been recruited.

The agreement also opened the door to recruit Spanish doctors. While 100 foreign doctors have already applied to …