A retired public health director will lead an urgent review into how many women have suffered serious side effects after undergoing mesh implant surgery.

Health Secretary Alex Neil announced Dr Lesley Wilkie would head up the independent review.

All Scottish health boards have now been contacted to ask them to suspend the routine use of the implants. Transvaginal tapes and meshes are used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, with an estimated 1,850 women having the surgery each year in Scotland.