Immigration rules are hampering the ability of the NHS to recruit doctors, health leaders are warning.
The number of skilled non-EU workers granted UK visas is capped - with the Home Office arguing the restriction is in "the national interest".
But NHS bosses say increasing numbers of doctors are being refused permission, worsening rota gaps and the waits patients face for treatment.
It comes amid a row after visas for 100 Indian doctors were refused.
The doctors had been recruited as part of a long-running scheme in the North West which supplies junior doctors to more than 30 NHS trusts.
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Bosses at the trusts have written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Amber Rudd asking them to urgently look into the problem.
Analysis: 10 charts illustrating NHS woes
NHS 'dangerously' short of 100,000 staff
Jon Rouse, chief officer of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, which represents services across the region, said he was shocked and concerned by the development.
"As we reach the end of a winter where the NHS has been stretched to its very limits, partly as a result of a lack of medical workforce, we find it almost impossible to understand how this decision can have been reached."
He said these doctors would have worked across hospital services - and warned rotas would now go unfilled.
The NHS is already short of doctors, with a report from the regulator NHS Improvement warning one in 11 posts was vacant.
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The number of skilled non-EU workers granted UK visas is capped - with the Home Office arguing the restriction is in "the national interest".
But NHS bosses say increasing numbers of doctors are being refused permission, worsening rota gaps and the waits patients face for treatment.
It comes amid a row after visas for 100 Indian doctors were refused.
The doctors had been recruited as part of a long-running scheme in the North West which supplies junior doctors to more than 30 NHS trusts.
microsoft support live chat
Bosses at the trusts have written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Amber Rudd asking them to urgently look into the problem.
Analysis: 10 charts illustrating NHS woes
NHS 'dangerously' short of 100,000 staff
Jon Rouse, chief officer of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, which represents services across the region, said he was shocked and concerned by the development.
"As we reach the end of a winter where the NHS has been stretched to its very limits, partly as a result of a lack of medical workforce, we find it almost impossible to understand how this decision can have been reached."
He said these doctors would have worked across hospital services - and warned rotas would now go unfilled.
The NHS is already short of doctors, with a report from the regulator NHS Improvement warning one in 11 posts was vacant.
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