00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday.
00:04My name is Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Investigations Correspondent, Martin McLaughlin.
00:12And Martin, we're going to get into a couple of issues that continue to crop up in the headlines again this week.
00:21But firstly, the front page of today's Scotsman.
00:24And we led on a huge increase in vacancies for midwives and nurses, up some 60% overall.
00:32There were some figures in this around corridor care as well, the number of staff that are treating patients in some capacity in corridors, 19% indicating that they were needing to take those steps, almost one in five.
00:50So some quite stark figures that paint a picture of a health service.
00:56And while there have been some slightly encouraging figures this week around A&E with some improvements that I know Health Secretary Neil Gray has highlighted,
01:07it still suggests a health service is under immense pressure.
01:11You read that story at scotsman.com and the rest of our coverage as well, including an update on Drossan Harbour from Alistair Dalton that you can see on the front page there as well.
01:24Martin, one thing that you have written about in the past 24 hours is drug deaths.
01:30Yes, we had the fresh figures out yesterday.
01:34While they were encouraging, it wasn't all, I guess, positive responses, if that makes sense.
01:41Can you talk us through what the figures said and just, you know, what people in the industry who are pushing to try and support those at risk of death are saying as well?
01:52Yeah, absolutely, Dale.
01:54It's become something of a really heartbreaking annual tradition in Scottish journalism to report on the drug death figures that are released from the National Records of Scotland.
02:05Like you say, there was some small positive signs in the latest batch of data that was released.
02:12They showed a 13% reduction in the number of drug-related deaths last year compared to 2023.
02:19But even so, we're still talking about 1,017 people who lost their lives, 1,017 families that have been impacted.
02:28So it remains, you know, one of the biggest public health emergencies anywhere in Britain.
02:35And, you know, there's an increasing pressure on the Scottish government to justify its action.
02:42There is an ongoing national mission to deal with the drug death crisis in Scotland.
02:47And that mission is due to come to an end next year.
02:50And the way things are, it's quite hard to see how the downward trend can be accelerated to a degree that will finally rid Scotland of its unwanted status as Europe's drug death capital.
03:06It's interesting because the more this story is covered over the years, the more kind of detailed the analysis and the calls for action become.
03:16I spoke to people across various services yesterday and really kind of wide-ranging interventions and suggestions from a national rollout of the Safer Drug Consumption Facility that we've seen in Glasgow.
03:30The Scottish Drugs Forum would like to see that put in place across different areas where there are people injecting in unsafe environments and indeed smoking drugs in unsafe environments.
03:42The NRS data highly highlighted certain geographical hotspots, you know, Glasgow and Dundee.
03:50And as has become a grim tradition, those people in deprived communities are far more at risk of dying due to drugs than those in more well-off areas.
04:02So there's a lot to kind of dig into here, and there are certain trends that have been identified in this data by some of the experts in the field, which I think give cause for concern, not least the rise in the deaths related to synthetic opioids known as nitazines.
04:20There's been a real spike in those, and there is a concern that the data may be under-reported.
04:28There's more current data from different sources that's come out over the past quarter, which indicates that there's been a really significant spike in overdoses from these synthetic opioids.
04:39So it's a real cause of ongoing concern.
04:42You can read that piece from Martin at scotsman.com where he's spoken about to numerous figures in the industry that are looking at what potential solutions and what action could be taken, including charities in this sense that are trying to support those dealing with drug use to avoid the worst outcome for them and their families.
05:07Martin, Martin, I'll mention a couple of issues that continue to be in the headlines.
05:12The other one is the issue of Palestine action.
05:15There has been a man arrested and charged in connection in Scotland today, confirmed by police.
05:25But it points us to the wider issue, and I know there's some demonstration action here to take place this week.
05:32But also, it's something that you've written about over the past couple of days.
05:37Can you talk us about?
05:39Yeah, that's right, Dale.
05:40It's pretty much two months since the UK government decided to prescribe Palestine action under the Terrorism Act 2000.
05:47And the debate and the controversy surrounding that decision is really only intensifying.
05:52I interviewed the chief executive of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service last week, who really wanted to speak about the independence of that prosecution service and how that really cherished status is being put at risk by the elements of the protests around the prescription.
06:13Obviously, people are completely entitled to protest around Gaza and what's happening in the Middle East.
06:22But when it comes to suggesting that prosecutors and police should be taking certain types of action or suggesting that they're taking different types of action relating to different causes of protests, I think that's made the Crown Office very uneasy.
06:38And John Logue, the Crown agent, told me that there were politicians who have been making such points over the past week.
06:46And it's very important to reassure the public that the Crown Office is applying the law uniformly across any kind of protest.
06:55Where things are different with Palestine action is that prescription.
06:59There are huge amounts of controversy around the fact it was prescribed in the first place, but there's also, it's fair to say, a degree of ambiguity around people attending protests, peaceful protesters who may be arrested.
07:15There are certain articles in the terrorism act 2000 relating to the wearing of clothes, for example, which has left people unsure if they turn up with a message of support for Palestine that doesn't necessarily say the words Palestine action, will they be arrested?
07:34So those doubts are really continuing and it's intensifying as things go on.
07:42In the wake of my interview with Mr. Logue, the former First Minister and former Justice Secretary, no less, Hamza Youssef, called on the Crown Office to effectively echo what was done with the safer drug consumption room in Glasgow by not prosecuting people.
07:59But that has been rejected by the solicitor general who said it's not the Lord Advocate's place to do that, it would kind of contravene their very basis and the kind of foundational role that they have in the criminal justice system.
08:16So we're going to see those debates intensify, I think, and there's going to be a big test this weekend because there is a planned mass demonstration due to take place in Edinburgh being organised by the defender.
08:29Or juries group scheduled to take place outside of the UK government offices at Queen Elizabeth House and those taking part are going to be brandishing placards and items, making it clear they support Palestine action.
08:47So this is going to be a real test for Police Scotland and the Crown Office and we're going to have to see how it plays out.
08:55You can read the stories that we've discussed here at scotsman.com if you ever can't find any of our relevant coverage linked to politics, which some of this is, then you can find that tab in the navigation bar.
09:10Please follow us on all social media channels and go out and buy a copy of Scotsman in print tomorrow, where we will have the very latest, including some coverage of John Swinney's statement, which he's given in Scottish Parliament this afternoon on the situation in Gaza.
09:30Martin, thanks to you and thanks to everyone else for joining us.
09:33Thanks, Neil.
09:33Thanks, Neil.
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