Accident and emergency (A&E) departments across Scotland have missed a waiting times target for the third month in a row.

New figures published by NHS Scotland show 93.9% of patients at emergency units were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in October.

This is below the target of 95% set by the Scottish Government. It is the third month in a row the target has been missed.

In September, the performance level was 94.9% while in August the figure was 94.8%.

Despite the target being four hours, 742 patients spent more than eight hours in A&E departments while 148 were in emergency units for 12 hours.

The worst performing area was NHS Ayrshire and Arran whose A&E units at Ayr, Crosshouse and Arran hospitals were signficantly below the target at 91.7%. NHS Lanarkshire was second from bottom with 91.8%.

NHS Tayside had the highest pefomance rate with 98.6%.

Health board performance levels and total A&E patients treated:

During October, 136,754 people attended A&E services across the country.

Health secretary Shona Robison said: "As we have seen throughout the year, A&E figures will fluctuate week-to-week and we are monitoring this closely to ensure no one is waiting longer than absolutely necessary in our emergency departments.

"We are working together with hospitals and boards to improve hospital processes to increase the percentage of patients discharged before noon, and discharging patients at weekends at the same rate as on weekdays, and strengthen community capacity to reduce delayed discharges.

"Nationally, our emergency departments are still maintaining a high level of performance, with Scotland's A&E waiting times consistently outperforming other areas of the UK for at least the past 19 months."

Liberal Dmeocrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton called on the Scottish Government to "urgently establish" what is going wrong inside A&E departments.

"It isn't surprising to see that the Scottish Government missed the A&E performance target in October. Recently we have seen performance drop.

"Ministers must urgently establish what is needed to turn performance around so that frontline services have the support they need to help reduce waiting times as we go into a cold December."