It's boom time for Lothians

Births now outnumber deaths by nearly 200 a month, and coupled with migration from within and outside the UK it has boosted population by around 25,000 in just three years.

With no real sign of the baby-boom curtailing and people living longer, there have been warnings that the health service will be put under increasing pressure.

The latest General Register Office figures shows the Lothians population sitting at 826,000 and counting.

Dr Alison McCallum, director of public health for NHS Lothian, said: "These figures again confirm that people in Lothian are living longer - which is good news.

"The rising population has led to increased use of our services and we target the funding we receive to ensure we provide high-quality clinical care and improve productivity. We have already pioneered more efficient ways of working through our Lean in Lothian programme and our staff have had significant success in improving service provision."

The health board already thinks it receives around 70 million less than it should from the Scottish Government's NHS resource allocation committee. That formula favours west coast boards with higher levels of poverty and, subsequently, poorer levels of health.

In Glasgow, the three-year population rise is only around 9000 for what is a much larger board, while in Tayside it was only 8000.

Meanwhile, the number of people getting married has increased this year. Marriages across Scotland were up by 326 from 11,251 in the third quarter of 2009, to 11,577 for the same period in 2010.

The report revealed there were 12,506 deaths registered in the third quarter of 2010 across Scotland, a small increase of 0.6% from 2009.

Deaths from cancer increased by 2.9%.

There were 171 civil partnerships registered during the quarter, 21 fewer than 2009.