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In 10 years more than 7,000 hospital admissions for children who have self harmed.

The statistics were branded "astonishing" by the Lib Dem health spokesman Ross Finnie, who obtained them through a parliamentary question.

Public Health Minister Shona Robison said an extra £5.5m would be invested in mental health services by 2011-12.

Following a recent report into child and adolescent mental health which warned about the prevalence of self-harm and the lack of systematic support.

Cases can cover patients being transferred between hospitals, specialties or to the care of a consultant, so a single patient can trigger multiple episodes.

Ms Robison said: "We are aware of the extent of the issue of self-harming and are committed to tackling this.

"We are committed to improving access to both community and in-patient mental health services and we see increasing the specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workforce as key to this."

She said she expected the additional £5.5m to lead to a 15-20% increase in specialist staff.

"This increased workforce will help NHS boards deliver our new waiting time target for access to specialist CAMHS, meaning no-one will wait longer than 26 weeks by March 2013 at the latest," she added.

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