Nearly 150 operations have been cancelled in hospitals across Glasgow following the closure of a unit responsible for sterilising surgical equipment.

A total of 140 surgical procedures, as well as a additional number of major surgeries, at five hospitals across the city have been postponed to a later date after inspectors found issues with the fabric of the Cowlairs decontamination unit in Springburn last week.

Patients due operations at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Stobhill Hospital, Gartnavel General Hospital and New Victoria Hospital have been affected.

The facility at Cowlairs, which opened in 2005, supplies all Glasgow hospitals and all duties will now be transferred to another unit in Inverclyde Royal.

All of the instrumentation has to be collected, decontaminated, sterilised, tested, repackaged and returned to clinical staff quickly to ensure that thousands of patients can be treated each day.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde apologised to patients after 83 surgeries were cancelled on Tuesday.

The healthboard also a small number of urgent cases had been postponed as a result of the issue.

STV News also told how a total of 53 operations were put on hold following the closure last week.

An NHSGGC spokesperson said: "The closure of the unit on Friday following an inspection by our independent quality assurance advisors created significant logistical issues, both in terms of finding alternative facilities that could carry out the decontamination and in ensuring the rapid turnaround required to support our busy elective and emergency programme in Glasgow.

"Our staff have been working tirelessly to resolve the current situation and to put in place alternative arrangements for the sterilising of all the equipment necessary to support the hundreds of operations that take place each day.

"The logistics of this have been challenging; we are working with other health boards over the country to create the capacity needed to meet the demand.

"Whilst we have been able to continue to turn around many thousands of instruments over the past few days, we have had to restrict our programme of planned surgery to enable us to prioritise emergency, trauma and urgent cases.

"This has meant that some, but not all, of our non-urgent cases have been rescheduled, including 87 patients yesterday.

"We have also had to postpone a small number of urgent cases involving highly specialised instruments and are arranging for these patients to be seen as a priority.

"We are sorry for any inconvenience caused and would wish to reassure patients that we are working round the clock to bring the unit back into operation as quickly as possible."