Ms Deacon claimed head lice are rife

The Labour MSP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh said there was strong anecdotal evidence that the problem was spreading in the capital.

She said executive guidelines banning schools from sending warning letters to parents were making matters worse.

Ministers said they had stopped writing warning letters to reduce the "stigma".

Not ashamed

Ms Deacon, who was the executive health minister from 1999 until Jack McConnell became first minister in December 2001, said there was a case for moving away from the old-style alert letters.

However, she said: "If you stop sending out letters then you have got to do something else to raise awareness and to explain to parents how and when they can check their children's heads and steps they can take that will tackle this.

"The best way of reducing stigma is to discuss this openly because any child can be affected by head lice so we should not be ashamed of talking about it."

She said the executive had created advice packs on head lice but they were not being distributed widely enough.

Susan Deacon is a former Labour health minister

The executive defended its approach, saying it had been writing to local authorities over the summer reminding them that they should be proactive in making parents aware of the risks.

NHS Lothian said there was no evidence of an increase in head lice cases.

However, Ms Deacon said it was impossible to know the extent of the problem as there was "no systematic gathering of evidence".

She added anecdotal evidence suggested that over recent years this problem has become "rife" in our communities.

"The executive acted on that to the extent of developing new guidance and putting out an information leaflet to parents," Ms Deacon said.

"While this guidance was good intentioned, my concern is that it does not work.

"Rather than raising awareness of this issue, what it serves to do is close down discussion and communication.