Admissions to the only psychiatric hospital in the Highlands have been restricted due to acute staff shortages.
NHS Highland said “extreme staffing pressures” meant that admissions to New Craigs Hospital, on the outskirts of the city, have been restricted as a temporary measure to ensure staff can deliver a safe level of care.
The acute staffing pressure on the nursing establishment at the hsopital is due to the current number of vacancies.
As a result, the health board decided to restrict the number of adult admissions, but said that day hospital services will not be affected.
Michael Perera, NHS Highland’s General Manager for Mental Health Services, said: “We have had to reduce our adult admission bed complement from 54 to 48 for the month of August in order to maintain a high quality and safe environment for all staff, patients and visitors.
“At the moment, 42 of our inpatient beds are in use, but this temporary restriction will mean that we will not be able to take admissions from out of the area.
“The situation will be kept under constant review by NHS Highland.”
Mr Perera added: “We have been successful in recruiting 10 trained nursing posts with staff expected to start in September. This will go some way to help alleviate the situation.
“But the shortages we are experiencing are a reflection of what is happening in health boards in other parts of the north of Scotland.”
A spokeswoman for NHS Grampian said there are challenges facing the mental health service there, too.
She added: “We have measures in place to mitigate this which have included the use of bank staff and reviewing existing working patterns.
“Problems have been compounded by the scarcity of suitably qualified staff both locally and nationally.
“We want to keep our patients safe. We also want to ensure our staff are able to care for them appropriately.
“We are working hard on sustainable solutions for this problem.”
New Craigs Hospital in Inverness provides a wide range of mental health care and works closely with community mental health teams.
There are also day hospital services provided on the site which are continuing as normal.