SCOTLAND’S NHS faces a “workforce crisis” in psychiatry resulting in a “postcode lottery” in mental health treatment, MSPs have warned.

Holyrood’s public audit committee sounded alarm bells on a chronic shortage of psychiatrists and a “costly” dependency on locums to fill the growing gaps in their latest report on the state of mental health services.

Committee convener Richard Leonard MSP said: “We heard the message loud and clear from those we took evidence from – this is a system under immense pressure.