Scotland's accident and emergency (A&E) departments have continued to miss their key waiting time target despite a slight improvement.

The latest figures from NHS Scotland shows 86.7% of those attending A&E during the week ending March 18 were either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

The country's health boards are expected to ensure at least 95% of their patients are seen within four hours.

This target has now not been met since the week ending July 30 last year, a period of 37 consecutive weeks.

A total of 478 patients had to wait more than eight hours to be seen during the week in question, with a further 115 forced to wait more than 12 hours.

Health secretary Shona Robison has blamed black ice, an increase in flu and this month's snow storms for the missed targets.

The latest performance is an improvement of the previous week's showing of 83.5%, but is below the comparable week last year's performance of 92.9%.

Robison said: "It is encouraging that A&E performance has improved in the most recent week.

"Health boards have experienced their busiest winter in a decade and the recent unprecedented weather conditions amplified these pressures across the whole system.

"We expect to see weekly fluctuations as a result."