Care homes in Scotland have been accused of using recruiters to traffic foreign nurses and then forcing them to work and live in appalling conditions.

Some nurses are believed to have paid up to £5,000 agency “placement fees” to gain work in the UK after being promised lucrative contracts in NHS hospitals.

A report by the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford University – due to be published later this year – uncovered a catalogue of abuse among overseas nurses in Scottish care homes.

Examples included nurses being forced to work up to 60 hours a week in order to pay back recruitment agency placement fees.

According to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, there is a loophole in the law that prevents the DTI from prosecuting agencies who charge workers fees offshore, so unscrupulous agencies are able to do this legitimately.

Marcia Roberts, deputy chief executive of the REC, said: “The REC and its members all adhere to a strict code of conduct but stories of this nature give the recruitment industry a bad name.”