Specialist medical and health care recruiters will play a key role in meeting the future recruitment needs of the NHS, says a leading figure of the health care recruitment industry.

Vicky Scott, operations manager at a prominent employment agency specialising in the medical sector, told Recruiter magazine that to meet proposed efficiency savings the NHS should turn to specialist private providers.

Her comments were made after the new health secretary, Andrew Lansley, warned viewers of Friday's Today programme on Radio 4 over public spending. Although the Conservative Party has pledged to increase overall NHS budgets each year, Lansley said that it would still be necessary to implement significant efficiency savings each year in the NHS - beyond the previously anticipated 3% rate.

Scott says that niche recruitment services will allow health care organisations to recruit people for niche roles such as physiotherapy jobs, occupational therapy jobs or even dietitian jobs in a "cost effective and direct manner...while also finding high quality candidates to support the future of health care services..."

"While budgets are going to be increasingly scrutinised, health care organisations still have a duty to their patients to provide them with care from highly qualified professionals," said Scott.