A health board is to offer unreserved apologies to 86 patients after "human error" resulted in a confidentiality breach.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) said it was "extremely concerned" about the incident which centres around an email communication from a member of staff.

Officials said they will investigate the breach and are taking steps to contact those affected by it.

The Information Commissioner's Office has also been notified. It said in a statement: "We are aware of the incident at NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and we will be looking into the details."

The health board has not revealed details of where the breach occurred. BBC Scotland reported that the people affected were transgender patients at Glasgow's Sandyford Clinic.

NHSGGC said the breach happened yesterday when the 86 individuals were sent an email with information about a forthcoming event.

The member of staff sending the message made the "unfortunate error" of attaching all the email addresses of the patients in the one email.

Some of the addresses included information about people's names and dates of birth.

In a statement, the health board said: "Patient confidentiality is of the highest priority and we are extremely concerned that this breach has occurred as a result of human error.

"On review of the email addresses we can confirm that a number of the individuals' names and dates of births are discernible from the email addresses.

"We have already made the Information Commissioner aware of this issue and have been guided by him."

Dr Pauline McGough, consultant in sexual and reproductive health at NHSGGC, said: "We are urgently taking the appropriate steps to contact the individuals concerned and will apologise unreservedly to them for any distress this may have caused.

"We will investigate this issue fully and take appropriate steps to ensure this does not happen again including urgently reaffirming to staff the vital importance of handling sensitive data with the utmost diligence to maintain patient confidentiality."