New Zealand's offering to pay overseas nurses their course costs to lure them to the country.

It's part of a tranche of measures to bolster our health workforce, including paying former nurses to sign back up.

The Government will also cover international doctors' salaries during training - and double the nurse practitioners being trained.

Health Minister Andrew Little told Heather du Plessis-Allan imported nurses can get up to $10,000 to help them get here.

“The overseas nurses - they’ve got to do their competency assurance programme, and there’s quite a variety of different fees that they have to pay, so we will pick up the cost.”

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