FOR The Herald's NHS Time for Action series Helen Puttick, health correspondent, has spoken to nurses and collected views from around the country.

Identities have been protected. Here are some of the comments:

Staff member, Victoria Hospital, Fife, writing on website Patient Opinion Scotland.

"Since December 2012 there have been too many patients for our bed capacity, resulting in patients being placed in inappropriate wards/departments due to lack of beds and delayed discharges.

"In some cases elderly dementia patients have been moved up to seven times in three to four days when it clearly stated in their notes that due to their delicate condition under no circumstances were they to be moved.

"Four bedded wards have had another two beds placed in the middle of the room, with no curtains round beds, no buzzers, no piped oxygen and so on. The management have been saying its a winter crisis but it is now nearly June and it is still happening."

l NHS Fife said that, as well as the high winter demand across Scotland, the board had difficulty moving patients into community care. It added: "The situation above required us to ensure that the most sick patients were cared for in the right type of ward.

"This meant the patients who were more able were moved to other ward areas so that the sickest patients received their care in an appropriate place.

"We would prefer not to move patients to other wards and acknowledge this is not ideal."

It is reviewing space and bed use.

Nurse, acute ward, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GGC).

"It was an exceptionally bad winter... the phone was going constantly with other wards saying 'you need to take this patient.' I was saying: 'I would love to take a patient but I have nowhere to put them.' It was very stressful. We have got a roughly one nurse to 10 patient ratio, which is a lot. In that busy period when everyone was very sick I would come home at night very upset that I was not providing the standard of care I needed to."

l NHS GGC said all boards had been set nationally-agreed nurse-to-patient ratios. It recognised the winter was challenging and was grateful to staff. Staffing levels were monitored three times a day during peak times to ensure safety and where necessary extra nursing staff were arranged.

Nurse, medical ward, NHS Tayside.

"On the majority of your shifts you are looking after eight to 10 patients per nurse. That is patients with complex medical and social problems. On the night shift you have 12 to 15 patients per nurse to look after. They do not miraculously need you less at night.

"It is so frustrating for every single nurse. No-one wants to go home feeling sad, thinking 'I did not give everyone the attention they really need.' I think it has got a lot worse. I remember I used to have six patients to look after whether it was day or night."

l NHS Tayside said its approach to nurse/patient ratios is in line with both National and Royal College of Nursing (RCN) recommendations. It said it works to a standard of one nurse to six patients, and added: "The RCN recently commended NHS Tayside on increasing nursing staff by 200, which is a 4% increase over the last two years against a Scottish average increase of 1%.

Mental health nurse, NHS Grampian.

Said his service turned to the nurse bank for temporary staff more than once a week but often found no-one was available. He added: "You can have a violent incident with a couple of patients and you are struggling to have enough people to get in there and manage that as safely as you want to manage it."

l NHS Grampian: "The service experienced increased clinical activity in recent months, coinciding with a high level of nursing vacancies." It said it had worked with staff to address this, allocated an extra £700,000 for recruitment and appointed 12 nurses with a further 20 to join in the next few weeks. Extra health and safety training has been prioritised.