Health Secretary Shona Robison said work is continuing to try to recruit children's specialists after a staff shortage led to the temporary closure of a hospital ward.

NHS Lothian announced this week that the children's ward at St John's Hospital in Livingston, West Lothian, is to close to inpatients for six weeks because of a lack of cover.

The closure, effective from July 3, will see youngsters treated at Edinburgh's Sick Kids' Hospital instead and comes three years after a similar summer shutdown at St John's.

Ms Robison said there was "no easy solution" to the difficulty of filling paediatric posts and it was not a problem confined to Livingston.

However she said that no other hospital wards had been brought to her attention.

Speaking about St John's, the Health Secretary said: "The same issue did happen three years ago and the same issues pertain to paediatrics. We have increased the number of paediatric consultant posts by 76%, we have gone out internationally to try and recruit, but it is very difficult to find the people for those posts.

"We have helped Lothian to overcome a number of problems. For example, we've expanded the number of advanced nurse practitioners who are working in paediatrics.

"We have been working with them to some success. The service has stabilised over those three years. But a culmination of sick leave, maternity leave and then annual leave has brought things to an unsustainable position over the summer.

"We will continue to work with Lothian and other boards to help them to recruit to these specialities which are very difficult to recruit to."

When asked to reassure that the children's ward will not close again next summer, Ms Robison said: "We are going internationally again to try and recruit paediatric posts, we will continue to expand the number of nurse practitioner posts, we will continue to do all of that.

"I don't envisage that it will close next summer. The issues of sick leave, maternity leave and annual leave all came together this summer, I don't envisage that those issues would come together next summer in the way they have this summer."

NHS Lothian stressed on Wednesday it had not taken the decision to close the children's ward lightly but the safety of children was its top priority.

Last year 3,000 children were admitted, with 700 requiring a stay of 24 hours or more.

The board said it has not been able to fill the medical and specialist nursing posts needed, despite national and international recruitment campaigns.

Scottish Labour's health spokeswoman Jenny Marra said: "Families and patients across Scotland will be concerned that the Health Secretary could not give the most basic of assurances that services would not close again next summer.

"In the case of St John's, we are seeing the same problems from three years ago, it is clear the SNP Government in Edinburgh did not learn the lessons of 2012 and now it is families in the Lothians who are losing out.

"We are seeing an NHS struggling to cope with demand. Our doctors and nurses work incredibly hard, under massive pressure, to deliver the care Scots deserve.

"The reality is that the SNP Government in Edinburgh have squeezed health spending harder than the Tories at Westminster, and it is patients and NHS staff who are losing out."

Ms Robison said earlier this week that NHS Lothian had been clear that the recruitment issues were not related to funding.