A CATALOGUE of errors at NHS Borders has been exposed for the first time.

Critical incident reports from health boards across Scotland, which are normally kept under lock and key, have been released under Freedom of Information.

And they reveal a disturbing series of blunders by local health professionals - including running out of a patient's medication for five days, sending a first birthday card to a child who had died before birth, the wrong name being tagged to a body taken to the BGH mortuary, and several incidents of mis-diagnosis.

Throughout 2011-12 NHS Borders recorded a total of 68 serious incidents - amongst the highest in the country - although many of the logged details are for falls, attacks on staff and patients caught smoking on wards.

During May, 2011 a still-born baby was incorrectly allocated a Community Health Index number by a midwife. The child was on the CHI system as being alive for a year, only ending when a birthday card was sent through the Child Smile oral health team.

The records report the incident was 'very disturbing for the child's family'.

A letter of apology was sent and all birth records going back to the start of 2010 were checked.

The documents also reveal how last December a woman in the advanced stages of labour was made to wait in Accident and Emergency rather than being taken straight to the hospital's Labour Suite. Her baby was eventually born while she was being transferred between departments. The incident reports that medical staff had not been made aware of the patient's attendance in A&E.

In October of last year a patient arrived at the hospital's mortuary from Ward 12 with the wrong name on a wristband.

And a patient on Ward 4, and then transferred to Ward 6, went for five days without being given their prescribed medication - causing further complications.

Although the blunders have led to reviews and further training, the local health board's record-keeping has come in for praise.

Of all records released under FOI, NHS Borders has more incident recording than any other health board, including Greater Glasgow, Lothian, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.