The shortage of nurses in the North-East is being fuelled by a lack of university places, MPs have heard.

Redcar MP Vera Baird urged the Government to put more money into the system to allow Teesside University to offer more training places.

She said that historically 80 per cent of students at Redcar and Cleveland College went on to complete their training at the university.

This year only five were offered places at Teesside, of the 36 who gained initial qualifications at Redcar - an all-time low of 14 per cent.

Ms Baird said the quality of training was not to blame. Teesside was simply critically short of places, a combination of a lack of funding, and being over-subscribed with 1,700 applications for the 401 places available.

The university, she said, was given no extra funding this year to increase its places.

Junior Health Minister Hazel Blears acknowledged there were local problems on Teesside, even though the national budget for nurse training of £850m nationally was an increase of more than 75 per cent since 1997.

"The Durham and Tees NHS workforce confederation is continuing discussions with the university to see whether it is possible to expand those places," she said.