NICOLA STURGEON was accused of starving Scotland’s NHS of cash today, after new analysis showed health boards had made over £1 billion of cuts since she took office.

At First Minister’s Questions (FMQs), Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said she had presided over an “abject failure” to properly fund healthcare north of the border.

A new auditors’ report found yesterday that NHS Scotland is not financially sustainable and its performance is continuing to decline.

Mr Leonard told the chamber: “Health boards have had to make cuts totalling £1.1bn since Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister.

“This week’s Audit Scotland report exposes the mismanagement of the NHS under the SNP, with too many staff under too much pressure, too many patients waiting far too long and too many health boards having to make swingeing cuts.”

Auditors reports show that NHS boards had to cut back by £291 million in the financial year 2015/16 and by £387.4m in 2016/17.

The latest report shows the boards, which administrate NHS Scotland services on a regional basis, had to make £449.1m of cuts last year.

The SNP First Minister said the audit was “rightly blunt,” but insisted it “doesn’t tell us what we don’t already know.”

Ms Sturgeon also faced a grilling from Scottish Tory deputy leader Jackson Carlaw, who is acting up while Ruth Davidson takes maternity leave, over the use of mesh implants to treat breast cancer patients.

“This has surely been the greatest self-inflicted health scandal since thalidomide in the 1960s,” Mr Carlaw said.

Ms Sturgeon said: "Let me say today on behalf of the Scottish government I apologise unreservedly to any woman who has suffered because of mesh procedures."

Labour MSP Daniel Johnson raised the alarm at FMQs over a gun shop opening “a matter of yards” from an Edinburgh primary school. Ms Sturgeon promised to look into the matter. 

Afterwards, Mr Johnson said: “I am glad the First Minister shares my concerns about the location of gun shops. 

“I will be writing to her and Scottish ministers regarding regulating the location of such businesses which appears to fall between local government and police regimes.”

Conrad Landin is Morning Star Scotland editor.