19/01/2017 Midlands Today

The Dean of Gloucester Cathedral has defended his decision to remove

a video from social media, which showed a Muslim prayer

The film, which featured a local Imam, had been posted

on the Cathedral's Facebook page as part of a new exhibition

celebrating the city's different faiths, but it

A traditional Muslim prayer, filmed inside Gloucester Cathedral's

No one complained until it was posted on Facebook.

It was all about promoting tolerance as part of a faith exhibition,

What followed on social media was a series of offensive comments

and complaints from as far afield as the US.

When you're wanting people to discover new things

about themselves and about each other, that can become a bit

controversial and I had to take the decision at the weekend

that the post that was on our Facebook page wasn't

actually helping and, sometimes in particular

when you are representing a cathedral, people can make

comments that really aren't appropriate for them to see

Last week, St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow was criticised

after a Muslim student read passages from the Qur'an during

Online abuse they received is being investigated by the police.

Churches need to be thinking that actually, quite often,

the digital is the front door to their organisation and thinking

about what does that look like, what does that work like for people

who don't know anything about the faith, people who know

I think we've got to accept that there are different

In a statement, Imam Hassan, who read the prayer,

More than 1,000 people have attended the exhibition so far and it's set

NHS prescriptions drugs are being wasted on an industrial

That's the warning from health officials, as concerns grow that

some repeat prescriptions are being dispensed unnecessarily.

But in Walsall, the local Clinical Commissioning Group has

managed to reduce drug waste significantly by introducing

practice-based pharmacists into GP surgeries.

Ram Raman, from Walsall, has a range of long term conditions

I've called you in for your medication review.

Today, he's come to his GP surgery for a chat

Just looking at a couple of items you've had on your repeat list...

It's a chance for her to make sure he's taking his medicines correctly

and remove any items from his repeat list that he no longer needs.

OK, so you don't need that one anymore.

By making sure patients only get prescribed the items they need,

NHS Walsall is saving money - in Mr Raman's case,

Even a small amount of money individually, if put

together nationwide, that's a huge saving.

According to the Department of Health, wasted prescriptions cost

We've extrapolated savings for every pound invested into a pharmacist

being in the practice, we have shown that we have saved

nearly ?2.50, so it's kind of an invest-to-save, really.

Simple things like encouraging patients to check their

prescriptions before leaving the pharmacy is also

Once it is out of the pharmacy, the pharmacy cannot recycle it

and even if you bring it back they have to dispose it of and it's

So by encouraging patients to get more actively involved

in their own medicines management, NHS Walsall is cutting

waste and freeing up cash which can be ploughed back

Police are searching for thieves who used a JCB to smash their way

through the wall of a shop in Kempsey, near Worcester,

Most of the side of the shop in Church Street was destroyed

in the raid, which took place in the early hours of the morning.

Thieves had stolen the JCB from a nearby farm.

Following the raid, they abandoned it in the middle of the A38

Jaguar Landrover has been fined ?900,000 after a worker lost a leg

The employee was injured at the company's Lode Lane plant

in Solihull after a delivery driver lost control of a Range Rover Sport

being driven towards the start of the production line.

He became trapped between two cars, leaving him with injuries

which meant his right leg had to be amputated.

JLR was found guilty of breaching Health and Safety rules.

A group of MPs have been travelling around the West Midlands today,

listening to people's thoughts about Brexit.

The Exit the EU select committee is on a UK tour,

finding out what business leaders and others feel about the process.

Today, they visited two parts of the region which voted

strongly to leave - Wolverhampton and Stoke.

Everyone has a point of view on Brexit.

I don't think Theresa May's handling it very well at all.

Just don't take notice of what the public is saying, are they?

Yes, I do think it's going along well.

But not everyone gets to tell the politicians what they think.

That was the chance these students got today

as the rather grandly titled Selected Committee For

Leaving The European Union came to Wolverhampton.

Half-an-hour behind closed doors with the politicians responsible

for analysing the Government's plan on Brexit.

I think it will lose an element of what this university

is about because of Brexit because we won't get that

Sadly, the Leave campaigners weren't coming in today,

such as Michael Gove, but it was a very Remain heavy panel

that we were talking to and that came across evidently.

Here in Wolverhampton, more than 60% of people

The Brexit committee's been in the building behind me,

meeting business leaders and students among others,

to find out what they're excited about and what concerns

Whether people were Leavers or Remainers is not the point anymore.

We're leaving the European Union and our job collectively is to make

sure we get the best possible deal for Wolverhampton, because we're

here today, but also for the whole of the country.

After Wolverhampton, it was north to a tile

factory in Stoke-on-Trent, where confidence is high.

I think the fact that the MPs have come out of London to come

and have a look around the region to see what is being

I think on a level playing field scenario, as long

as there are no major disruptions, we're very confident we can continue

to grow the business as we have done in the past.

These MPs say people can influence what Brexit will look like.

If you are striving to eat your five-a-day,

you may have noticed a shortage of some green vegetables and salads,

That is because snow and freezing weather in Spain and Italy,

where many of those items come from at this time of year,

At Birmingham Wholesale Market, traders have seen prices of items

such as courgettes quadruple and shoppers too are

Have you noticed a shortage of some of your favourite vegetables

Everything from courgettes to spinach has been in short supply

and shoppers in Birmingham have had plenty to say about it.

Every single thing has gone up in the shops now and people

Everything's just going up and you're just trying to make

the most of what you've got and still eat healthy as well

It's a daily thing that you are actually going to need,

fruits, vegetables, all those kind of things.

Most of the stall holders here get their produce

from the wholesale market and the traders there have noticed

Peter Marshall has been a vegetable wholesaler

Never has he paid more for crops from Spain.

I think we have to start leaving armed guards here at night now,

And here's a flavour of just how much prices have risen.

Few examples - aubergines, five kilo box, was ?7

24 pieces of brocolli, generally 7.20, now 15.50.

I gather this is going to be next, coriander, going to go

This mobile phone footage of snow-covered coriander crops

was sent to Peter by his supplier in Murcia in Spain yesterday.

At this rate, coriander won't be on offer on the market for long.

I'll leave you now with the forecast from Rebecca Wood.

We have colder air, but nothing like we have seen covering the coriander.

There is a split across the region as we have three tonight. Today, for

some of us, it has been a grey and murky day, but further south the

cloud has started to Finland break. In Gloucestershire we had lots of

sunshine today. We did see breaks on the cloud. Those breaks mean that

the temperatures are already plummeting. In the sight of a region

we are likely to see the damage is getting below freezing, they did get

down to minus two. In the North Midlands where we keep the cloud

they should hold up at about 4 degrees. This weather system is

draped across the north of the country. Prasad means keep cloud in

the North Midlands, in the site tomorrow things will brighten up.

Weather is that dividing line between the cloud and clear skies we

can get fog through the day. It will be at dry and bright afternoon just

about everywhere with temperatures ranging between four and 5 degrees.

The easterly breeze will make you feel chilly. Into the weekend, more

brightness on the way. Overnight frost will become an issue. The

National forecast is next. I will leave you with the Outlook.

looks as though we can, a bit more cloud on Sunday. Now the national