A leading healthcare recruiter has moved some operations away from the UK because her British staff have low levels of literacy, continually 'throw sickies', steal database information and turn up for work with hangovers.

Penny Streeter, who was awarded an OBE in the New Year's honours list, was highly critical of 50 administrative staff she had recruited to her Ambition 24hours agency in Sutton, Surrey.

She also warned other recruiters that data theft was becoming endemic in the UK and said that agencies are insufficiently protected.

Streeter has now set up new offices in Cape Town, South Africa, which will be staffed initially by 250 employees handling support services, function booking and computerised data protection.

“I was finding that a lot of the administrative staff we took on had no work ethic. They were lackadaisical, took regular sickies, were often hung over, and suffered from low literacy,” Streeter told Recruiter.

“They were also taking up a lot of management time in that they needed to so much babysitting. “I also think data theft is an acceptable norm in the business, and many people just expect it to happen. In the business, this occurs at the rate of about two a year, and it gives the industry a bad name.”