A senior doctor has warned the NHS in Scotland “is in full blown crisis”.

Dr Graeme Eunson, chair of the British Medical Association Scotland’s Consultant Committee, also said he cannot recall a time in his career “when things have been this tough”.

Writing on his blog, he said NHS job vacancies, including all empty posts, are at about 15%.

He added: “What I hear consistently – and indeed at our committee meeting – is that consultants are prepared to stick at it for this winter and while we remain in pandemic.

“And that’s backed up by evidence from our recent survey of doctors following this year’s pay award.

“When you analyse those figures and filter out those too young to take voluntary early retirement (VER), some 70% of consultants asked said they were planning to take VER – either prompted (19.2%), or confirmed (30%) by the pay award, or were going to do it regardless of pay (21%).