Close to 400 nursing jobs are vacant at Medway Maritime Hospital, it has emerged.

The number equates to almost one third of nursing jobs at the trust and is the highest vacancy rate of all Kent’s hospitals.

Figures provided to the KM Group and Medway Messenger following a Freedom of Information request show that the trust has 394 full time vacancies, which are mainly being filled by temporary staff.

That is significantly more than Kent’s other trusts, with East Kent Hospitals Trust having 298; Maidstone and the Weald reporting 209 and Dartford and Gravesham with the lowest vacancy rate at 162.

The Medway NHS trust has also disclosed that 122 EU nationals left jobs at the hospital in the run up to the Brexit referendum and in the immediate aftermath.

Of these, 27 were nurses but the bulk - 78 - were clinical staff, including consultants.

Trust bosses say they are working hard to fill vacancies and have had successful recruitment drives that are addressing the shortfall of permanent staff.

James Devine, executive director of human resources at the Medway NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have three linked recruitment strategies to recruit permanent nursing staff from the UK, the EU and elsewhere in the world to the Trust.

"These strategies have been successful so far; we continue to attract and recruit more starters than leavers each month, and around 50 nurses from the EU have started with us since October last year.

"We have also had a successful recruitment trip this year to the Philippines and, pending final checks, we are hoping to welcome a number of nurses from the Philippines to the Trust over the coming months, with further international recruitment efforts taking place in October this year.”

Health chiefs and nursing leaders say Brexit has made recruiting staff even more difficult, largely because of the uncertainty surrounding the status of EU nationals.

The Royal College of Nursing said hospitals faced a "perfect storm" with Brexit just one factor in a growing recruitment crisis.

Patricia Marquis, the regional director for the Royal College of Nursing that oversees Kent, said a combination of issues were making recruiting enough staff increasingly difficult for hospitals.

She said in the immediate period after Brexit, many nurses from overseas had suffered abuse and made to feel unwelcome.

“That was really problematic for a while," she said.

"What has continued is the uncertainty about what Brexit will bring and it is not clear what will happen and what will happen to their families.”

Mr Devine said the trust had cut back on costly agency staff: "In the areas where we do have vacancies, we look to cover these areas with temporary workers from our own in-house bank in the first instance, before considering agency usage, where we have seen a significant reduction in our agency spend since October last year. "