Nicola Sturgeon’s government has been accused of presiding over a shambles in the Scottish NHS after it recorded a record shortage of nurses and midwives and a spike in the number of consultant vacancies.

Official figures showed the nurse and midwifery vacancy rate was 4.5 per cent, the highest ever reported and an increase of 27.5 per cent since March last year. Overall, there was the equivalent of 2,919 posts lying empty.

Consultant vacancies increased by 17.6 per cent over the same period to more than 400, with almost half the posts unfilled for more than six months.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned “there are simply too few nurses” to meet demand, while the British Medical Association (BMA) accused the Scottish Government of “still not facing up to the problems of medical recruitment.”

Holyrood’s opposition parties said the SNP’s “shambolic approach to workforce planning” over the past decade was responsible for the shortages and blamed the Nationalists’ focus on independence.

The figures showed increasing number of elderly patients ‘blocking’ beds when they were well enough to be discharged and the NHS having to spend £166.5 million more on expensive temporary nurses and midwives to make good shortages.