Nicola Sturgeon has insisted patient safety was not put at risk at a troubled hospital, despite being told staff shortages were so severe that doctors were being flown in from India and Jamaica.

Labour's Jackie Baillie pressed the former health secretary on the state of the NHS after a damning report highlighted ''significant deficiencies'' in the management of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI).

Ms Baillie accused the First Minister of a "denial about the problems and the challenges" the health service is facing.

The Labour MSP said the "most damning" aspect of the report was that it had revealed patient safety was "at risk".

But Ms Sturgeon accused Ms Baillie of misquoting the report in "her desperation to throw as much dirt at the SNP Government as she can".

The First Minister said: "While I am not defending anything in that report, that report was very careful to say patient safety had not been compromised.

"Of course when there are failings like the failings identified, patient safety could have been compromised and that is inexcusable.

"But Jackie Baillie should be very careful not to suggest something happened that the inspectors themselves said did not happen."

The report, from Healthcare Improvement Scotland, warned: ''The potential for patient care and safety to be further compromised is overwhelmingly evident in the findings of this report.''

Ms Baillie said then health secretary Alex Neil claimed last month there was "no crisis at NHS Grampian", but she added: "In the last week alone we have seen the crisis laid bare, consultant shortages so severe that doctors are being flown in from Jamaica and India.

"Accident and emergency treatment times missed, cancer treatment waiting times missed, fewer nurses to beds than in other hospitals in Scotland, bed blocking targets missed, a failing care of the elderly service and most damning of all, patient safety at risk. Saved only by the dedication of staff working under extreme pressure."

She added: "Surely the Scottish Government should have noticed there was a problem. Is there anyone in Government who has a clue about what was going on?

Ms Sturgeon, who has attempted to adopt a more consensual approach to politics since becoming First Minister, said: "Despite the provocation I'm not going to stand here and engage in a party political bun fight because I believe the NHS is actually too important for that."

Ms Sturgeon added: "I will never shy away from addressing the problems that need to be confronted in our NHS but I'm also not going to stand by and allow Labour to trash the record of our NHS, because they don't deserve it."

She was pressed on problems in the NHS during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood, with the weekly clash coming as a report revealed concerns about cleaning levels at another hospital.

The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) visited Glasgow Royal Infirmary to carry out an unannounced inspection in October.

While it reported that the ward environment was clean, inspectors found patient equipment which was contaminated with blood and other fluids, and there was a ''mixed understanding'' among staff in some wards over infection control procedures.

Ms Baillie claimed the SNP leader "seems to be in denial about the scale of the problem facing Scotland's health service".

She said "NHS Grampian is not alone" in having issues, adding: "Even today we see a damning report about the cleanliness of basic equipment at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Blood and bodily fluids contaminating beds and equipment."

She asked the First Minister: "Does she take any responsibility for this, or for consultant vacancies having more than doubled leading to a record £82 million being spent on hiring temporary doctors?

"Does she take any responsibility for bed numbers being slashed, any responsibility for accident and emergency departments in crisis and delayed discharge increases?"

Ms Baillie insisted: "The SNP Government has not just failed patients in Aberdeen but has failed them across Scotland. The First Minister cannot duck responsibility for this, she was the health secretary for five years."

Ms Sturgeon told her: "I, as First Minister of this country, take responsibility for the NHS. I will never shy away from that and I will be judged, as will my Government, on the progress we are making and will continue to make in the National Health Service."

But she told her Labour rival: "There are more staff vacancies because there are more staff working in the NHS, significantly increased numbers of people working across our National Health Service."

Consultants are at a "record high", Ms Sturgeon said, later telling Ms Baillie that there has "actually been a small increase in the number of beds in the NHS in the last year".

While she said the standards at Glasgow Royal Infirmary were "unacceptable", the First Minister said current Health Secretary Shona Robison had already spoken to the chair of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde about the matter.