The performance of accident and emergency departments across the north and north-east took a dip last week.
New figures from the Scottish Government showed that A&E departments in Grampian treated, discharged or admitted 92.1% of patients within four hours or less during the week ending March 22, down from 93.5% the previous week.
NHS Highland slipped from 96.6% down to 94.5%, putting its performance just under the 95% target set for all health boards.
The island health board achieved near perfect performance with NHS Orkney treating all patients within the four hours, while NHS Shetland managed 99.3% and NHS Western Isles 98.4%.
The reduction in performance by Grampian and Highland health boards was in line with a 0.5% decrease across the country to 91.7%.
Both health boards put the dips down to increase numbers of patients.
A spokeswoman for NHS Grampian said: “Over the past week, attendances to the emergency department have shown a slight increase. This, coupled with more complex and trauma cases, can result in patients being in the department for longer.
“The very nature of unplanned care can result in weekly fluctuations.
“The most seriously unwell or injured will always be seen sooner and complex patients requiring input from more than one speciality require longer time.”
A spokesman for NHS Highland said: “We expect a degree of variability in the weekly performance figures for emergency department waiting times due to peaks in demand for hospital services.
“The week ending March 22 was one such busy period at Raigmore Hospital and this is reflected in the waiting time target figure of 93.7% for that week.
“The reasons leading to a patient spending longer than four hours in the emergency department are recorded and scrutinised on an individual basis in order to help develop and improve our systems for patient flow.
“Our overall waiting time figure for the month of March is expected to be above target at around 96%.”