MORE than 600 extra doctors and 1,400 extra nurses have been recruited in the North-East and North Yorkshire in just 12 months, official figures showed yesterday.

Health Secretary John Reid said the figures proved the Government was boosting the NHS's "army for good" - cutting waiting times and improving survival rates.

But the Conservatives said the number of bureaucrats in the health service was increasing at twice the rate of frontline staff.

In the year to September 2004, 257 doctors were recruited in Northumberland Tyne and Wear, 194 in County Durham and Tees Valley and 154 in North Yorkshire.

There were even larger increases in the number of nurses: Northumberland Tyne and Wear recruited 883; County Durham and Tees Valley 191; and North Yorkshire 410.

Across the three strategic health authorities, there were smaller rises in the number of consultants (191), family doctors (92) and midwives (134).

Dr Reid said: "These figures show a year-on-year growth in the number of doctors, nurses and other frontline healthcare staff working in the NHS.

"This is having a huge impact on patients, helping them to access treatment faster and get better care.

"The NHS is the world's biggest army for good.

"It is these people who are responsible for the real changes we are seeing in patient care - the falling waiting times and the improvement in survival rates for cancer and coronary heart disease."

But the figures provoked a furious row in the Commons yesterday, when Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said most of the new recruits were managers.

He said central administration staffing increased last year by 7.8 per cent, twice the rate for doctors and nurses, Mr Lansley asked: "Why have you increased bureaucracy?"

But Dr Reid said the NHS nationwide had 9,200 more consultants then in 1997 (up by 42.7 per cent), 78,700 more qualified nurses (up by 24.7 per cent) and more GPs in training than ever before.

Labour's drive to boost the number of NHS doctors and nurses has run into criticism that too many are being "poached" from developing countries, particularly in Africa.

Last week, the British Medical Association described the recruitment drive as morally indefensible and demanded tougher rules to prevent damage to fragile health services in poor countries.

Last year, two thirds of newly-registered doctors, and more than 40 per cent of nurses, came from abroad. About 12,500 doctors registered to work in Britain are from African nations.