NURSES at an island hospital are preparing meals for patients due to a lack of kitchen staff, it has emerged.

Nurses have been asked to temporarily take over catering duties at Portree Hospital on the Isle of Skye amid an "extreme staff shortage".

NHS Highland said the arrangement has come about because three members of catering staff at Broadford's Dr MacKinnon Memorial Hospital are currently on sick leave. As a result, their colleagues at Portree Hospital have been moved to cover the absences. In the meantime, nursing staff have agreed to reheat and serve food to patients.

Local councillor John Gordon said the treatment of staff at Portree Hospital was "extremely concerning".

He added: "Highly experienced nurses whose priority is to care are having to cook and clean.

"We were given an assurance no changes would happen until a new hospital was built, yet the downgrading of Portree has been done in the most callous manner, which is completely unacceptable."

Fellow ward councillor Ronald MacDonald said: "I think it just demonstrates how broken the system is and typifies the management culture in NHS Highland."

Skye MSP Kate Forbes said that the current situation is "utterly unacceptable" and said it is "a credit to the nurses on Skye that they are willing to go the extra mile for their patients."

Scottish Conservative MSP Edward Mountain said healthcare provision on Skye and Raasay is "falling short of expectations".

Bob McGlashan, senior officer at the Royal College of Nursing, said the situation was "not ideal and nursing staff should be focusing on providing clinical care for patients", but highlighted assurances that it was just a "short term solution".

A spokesman for NHS Highland said: "We have an extreme staffing shortage currently between the two hospital sites, catering being one of these.

"As a result of this we have had to temporarily move staff to cover MacKinnon catering, as we have more patients there, and due to the few patients we have in Portree the nursing staff have been asked to support this situation.

"The staff have agreed to do the cooking as there are so few patients and it is not full meal preparation, simply reheating and serving."

The move emerged amid ongoing anger at the closure this week of the hospital's urgent out-of-hours care service due to a vacancy in the rural support team and other staff shortages.

It has also emerged that two tourists took their sick child to Portree Hospital on Wednesday evening but were unable to get treatment because out-of-hours care at the site was temporarily suspended due to staff shortages.

The family had to travel 25.6 miles to Broadford instead. The health board said staff absences and a vacancy in the rural support team, which provides out-of-hours care to the north of Skye, meant the hospital's urgent care centre in Portree had to be closed at 18:00 on Tuesday. NHS Highland has apologised for the inconvenience, and the Portree Urgent Care Centre has now re-opened.

Portree Hospital was closed to new admissions due to staff shortages.

Health services on Skye have hit the headlines in recent years following a controversial decision to locate a new island hospital in Broadford rather than Portree.

Earlier this week, Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch SNP MSP Kate Forbes described the out-of-hours situation as "utterly unacceptable".

Skye councillor Ronald MacDonald and Highland Council leader, Margaret Davidson, are to meet Health Secretary Shona Robison next week and raise their concerns about hospital services on Skye.