UNITS that sterilise surgical equipment in Scotland’s hospitals do not have enough capacity to deal with major breakdowns, health officials have warned.

Support from a service in Liverpool was recently needed to maintain part of NHS Scotland’s sterilisation service.

And NHS Lothian has warned there is not enough contingency in the system.

NHS Scotland said decontamination services were facing “capacity challenges” and a review was under way.

Last year, the majority of scheduled operations in NHS Lothian had to be postponed for nearly a week because of a leak in its Hospital Sterilisation and Decontamination Unit (HSDU).

The HSDU is based at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and processes about 400 trays of surgical instruments a day.

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