But, on her own admission, these statistics are not “comprehensive”. The figures for in-patient and day case surgery in acute hospitals did not include obstetric and psychiatric operations.

“There is no comprehensive list of diagnoses available which can reliably identify all surgical errors,” said Ms Sturgeon.

Of the 726 errors in Fife, 428 related to “unintentional cut, puncture, perforation or haemorrhage during surgical operation”.

In Tayside, of the 182 errors identified, 115 related to the cuts and puncture classification.

A spokesperson for NHS Tayside said, “We perform tens of thousands of surgical procedures, both routine and highly complex operations, every year and surgical errors are, fortunately, extremely rare.

“However, when any incident occurs we always carry out a thorough investigation and implement any lessons learned immediately.

“Patient safety is always our number one priority and NHS Tayside is at the helm of the patient safety programme in Scotland.

“Our work with the programme has seen us introducing a number of innovative ways to ensure that our patients get the highest standards of treatment and care.

“This means that we are always striving to improve the reliability and safety of our everyday health care systems and processes.”

NHS Fife was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.