PATIENT safety is at risk amid a massive rise in serious clinical blunders in Scotland’s NHS, critics claimed.

Rivals called on Health Secretary Neil Gray to “take his head from the sand and act” after data showed there were 832 ‘significant adverse events’ last year.

And that represented an alarming increase of almost 60 per cent in the most severe incidents since 2020.

The Category 1 cases are defined as those which result in “permanent harm” — including unexpected death or an “intervention required to sustain life”.

They also include issues which could lead to health boards losing at least £1million or suffering “ongoing national adverse publicity”.

All SAEs have had to be reported to Healthcare Improvement Scotland since 2020.

he 2023 spike — slammed as “damning and tragic” by critics — was driven mostly by major upticks in serious incidents in two of the largest NHS boards.

In Greater Glasgow and Clyde, they almost doubled from 139 to 272.

And there was a similar surge in Lanarkshire, where the figure rocketed from 55 in 2020 to 105 last year.

Other areas have also seen large increases, with NHS Forth Valley’s total more than tripling over the three years from just six to 28.

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