SNOWSTORMS dubbed the 'Beast from the East' and a surge in hospital admissions for flu contributed to thousands of operations being cancelled at the start of the year.

More than 3000 patients due to undergo planned surgeries across Scotland in the first three months of 2018 had their procedures postponed due to factors such as lack of beds, staff or theatre space, but heavy snow was blamed for hundreds of the cancellations in March.

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Figures show that a total of 3160 planned operations were cancelled for "capacity or non-clinical reasons" - including 1248 in January and 1201 in March. This is up from 1910 for the same period in 2017, an increase of 65 per cent.

It does not include scenarios where patients fail to turn up or surgery is cancelled because they are too sick for the procedure.

Labour Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health Anas Sarwar said: “Behind each of these figures is a patient waiting in pain for treatment that hospitals have not been able to give.

“We have seen a staffing crisis develop in our health service, with huge unfilled gaps for consultants, nurses and midwives. This failure goes straight to the door of the Health Secretary.”

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Miles Briggs, the Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary said: “It is deeply concerning that we are seeing such a significant increase in cancelled operations due to capacity issues and it clearly demonstrates the NHS under the SNP is unable to cope."

A number of health boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian, suspended all routine surgery for several days at the beginning of March when Scotland was gripped by an unprecedented red weather warning as freak blizzards brought roads and railways to a standstill.

Only emergency and cancer operations continued.

The Scottish Government stressed that adverse weather had been behind the majority of surgery cancellations. Of the 654 planned operations postponed by NHS Lothian, Fife, Highland and Borders in March, 405 were due to the snow.

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A spike in hospital admissions due to flu in January is also believed to have piled pressure on hospital beds, leading some patients' operations to be cancelled as wards ran out of space for inpatients.

A spokeswoman for the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (RCPE) said: "The combination of cold weather and an increase in cases of flu meant that care was more complex and exacerbated the challenges that winter typically brings.

"It highlights the need for proactive winter planning to review the whole system of care and our capacity to cope with demands placed upon it, to ensure the continuity of good care throughout the patient journey."

The number of hospital beds in Scotland has also been cut from 23,012 in 2012/13 to 21,340 in 2016/17, a reduction of 7.3 per cent.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “Severe weather and warnings not to travel did mean many staff could not get to hospital, and this level of disruption takes hospitals time to recover from.

"Despite that, on average 820 operations a day took place and feedback from boards has shown that the clear majority of cancellations for capacity or non-clinical reasons in March was due to the adverse weather."