The number of nursing jobs going unfilled has reached a record high, new Scottish Government statistics have shown.

A total of 5.2% of all nursing and midwifery posts are currently vacant, the equivalent of more than 3200 jobs.

The statistics also show a record number (476) of unfilled consultancy roles, with around half of them vacant for six months or more.

The Scottish Conservatives said the higher level of staff vacancies is a problem "created by the SNP" and it "continually gets worse".

Elsewhere in the NHS, the country's accident and emergency departments met their waiting time target for the second consecutive month.

A total of 1303 patients were kept in hospital after they were medically fit to leave in July, a fall of 6.66% from the same month last year.

Health secretary Shona Robison said: "I welcome the progress that health and social care teams are making, with the number of bed days lost to delayed discharge down 7% on last year.

"The number of people delayed over three days due to delays in health and social care also fell by 14% compared to last July.

"The recently announced extra £9m to improve patient flow through hospitals this year will help us continue to reduce delays even further and we are investing further in social care to eradicate this issue."

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: "In an organisation the size of the NHS, there will always be a certain number of vacancies.

"But this now accounts for thousands of nurses, midwives and consultants.

"The consequence of that is a huge reduction in the standard of care offered to patients, and a miserable existence for staff left over to pick up the slack."

Scottish Labour's health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: "This is the SNP's day of shame. Yet again, official figures show after a decade of SNP mismanagement our health service has been left on life support.

"Nursing, midwifery and consultant vacancies are all up, while operations are being cancelled because our staff and the NHS are not being supported by this SNP government.

Liberal Democrats health spokesman Alex-Cole Hamilton said: "We need to see the NHS recruitment crisis brought to an end but these figures show that the SNP are letting it deteriorate."