SCOTLAND’S Public Health minister has been urged to consider his position after drug-related deaths in the country hit an all-time high.

Yesterday Joe FitzPatrick insisted the Scottish Government was doing all it could with the powers it had.

The latest statistics from the National Records of Scotland, revealed that1264 people died in 2019, up 6% on the previous year.

Nearly seven in 10 of those who died last year were male and more than two-thirds were aged 35 – 54.

According to the NRS, Scotland’s drug-death rate was higher than those reported for all the EU countries and was approximately three and a half times that of the UK as a whole.

Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board alone recorded 404 deaths.

There were 163 fatalities in Lanarkshire, 155 in Lothian, 118 in Tayside and 108 in Ayrshire & Arran.

There wasn’t much in the way of good news among the statistics, though the rate of increase, at 6% has slowed significantly from the 27% rise between 2017 and 2018.

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The figures showed that heroin and/or morphine was implicated in more than half of all deaths, 645, while “street” benzodiazepines, such as etizolam, were found in 814. Methadone was found in 560.

Speaking at Holyrood, FitzPatrick said: “I think in the last two years we have taken considerable action to improve the service, the idea that I am not listening is just not factual.

“It is one of the things I have taken great care to do since being appointed to this post, to listen to people across Scotland with lived and living experience and those on the front line in this public health emergency.”

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said it was time for some new leadership.

“The public needs to have confidence in the public health minister to lead us out of this human rights tragedy – these shocking statistics and his woeful response gives us none.

“Joe FitzPatrick has tried his best but it’s not good enough. It’s time to make way for fresh leadership.”

In response to calls for him to quit, the SNP minister said: “I have heard her views, fortunately I have great confidence that across Scotland many of the people who are working at the front end of this public health emergency take a different view and continue to work really hard to turn this around.

“It’s easy to call names, it is easy to personalise, I am disappointed it has come from Monica Lennon.

“While I expected it from others in her benches, I don’t generally expect it from her.

“These figures are a tragedy, I think I will leave it there.”

David Liddell, chief executive officer of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said: “None of us should regard these preventable deaths as acceptable or as anything other than a national tragedy and disgrace.

“The need for change is obvious and that change is long overdue.”

LibDem health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said the deaths were the result of both UK and Scottish government failures.

He said: “Lives are being lost on an unprecedented and unparalleled scale and each of these people deserved better. There was nothing inevitable about their passing.

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“Too often services simply aren’t there, either through a lack of resources or a lack of political will.”

Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the Scottish Government didn’t need the UK government’s permission to allow drug consumption rooms in Scotland.

Harvie said:“The Lord Advocate has the power to act now. He should use his public interest discretion to ensure that no health professionals would face prosecution for providing lifesaving health interventions.”

He continued: “Establishing safe consumption facilities could play a significant role in reducing drug-related deaths and other serious harms.”

Scottish Tory health spokesman Donald Cameron said the statistics were “dreadful and heartbreaking”.

He said: “It is appalling that drug deaths have doubled in a decade.”

Cameron continued: “There’s no doubt that this government’s cuts to drug rehab and addiction programmes have a large part to play in this awful trend.”