The new National Suicide Prevention Strategy has been launched this morning – with a pledge to reduce England’s suicide rate within 2.5 years.

The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England 2023-2028 updates the previous strategy, published in 2012, and sets out the Government’s ambitions over the next five years to reduce suicide rates, improve support for people who have self-harmed and for those bereaved by suicide.

The new strategy pledges action to aid specific groups at risk of suicide, including children and young people, middle-aged men, autistic people, pregnant women and new mothers.

It also includes more than 100 measures including a national alert system to combat emerging methods of suicide and refreshed guidance for first responders.

The Government said the strategy aims to “rapidly” reduce England’s suicide rate, with a “firm commitment” to see the number decrease within two and half years at the latest.

Its contents was informed by data, evidence, and engagement with stakeholders, including people with lived experience and by the mental health call for evidence that DHSC ran in 2022.

Professor Sir Louis Appleby, Chair of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group, said: "The strategy makes a new commitment to bring down the unacceptable figure of over 5,000 suicides per year in England. It stresses the need for safer services and supportive communities.

"It acknowledges the bereaved families whose campaigning has turned personal tragedy into benefit for others.

"It gives the message that suicide can affect any of us and there is a role for all of us in prevention."

The Executive Summary of the strategy details the following

  • Priority groups identified at a national level include:
    • children and young people
    • middle-aged men
    • people who have self-harmed
    • people in contact with mental health services
    • people in contact with the justice system
    • autistic people
    • pregnant women and new mothers
  • The priority areas for action are:
    • Improving data and evidence
    • Tailored, targeted support to priority groups, including those at higher risk of suicide
    • Addressing common risk factors linked to suicide at a population level
    • Promoting online safety and responsible media content to reduce harms and improve support and signposting a
    • Providing effective crisis support across sectors for those who reach crisis point
    • Reducing access to means and methods of suicide
    • Providing effective bereavement support to those affected by suicide 
    • Making suicide everybody's business
  • Common risk factors addressed include
    • physical illness
    • financial difficulty and economic diversity
    • gambling
    • substance misuse
    • domestic abuse
    • social isolation and loneliness

Key actions highlighted in the Executive Summary include:

  • The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has established a £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund to run from 2023 to March 2025 to support VCSE organisations to deliver suicide prevention activity.
  • NHS England (NHSE) is taking forward improvements to the mental health crisis support offer, supported by an investment of £150 million. This includes procuring specialised mental health ambulances and investing in a range of infrastructure schemes, including alternatives to A&E, crisis cafés, and new and refurbished mental health assessment and liaison spaces.
  • The Department for Education (DfE) is engaging experts and those with personal experience to review relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) guidance to determine whether suicide and self-harm prevention will be included as an explicit part of the curriculum
  • The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will continue to roll out suicide and self-harm prevention training among prison and probation staff to help staff across the justice system better identify and support people who might be experiencing suicidal thoughts or feelings. MoJ is planning to install new ligature-resistant cells to make cells safer, focusing on the highest-priority prisons
  • NHSE has convened a safety-planning working group to identify opportunities to improve the quality and culture of risk management and safety planning within mental health services. This group intends to develop and publish guidance by March 2024, and scope and start delivery of training and quality improvement programmes by March 2025
  • DHSC will work with NHSE and professional bodies to improve suicide prevention signposting and support to people in contact with primary care services, including those receiving care for physical ill-health and groups such as middle-aged men. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is in the process of revising their curriculum and will assess where guidance on safe prescribing may be strengthened to reduce risks associated with the prescribing of certain medicines
  • The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is procuring a call alert and transcription service across its telephony estate to support the quick identification of people who raise suicidal thoughts when using DWP call helplines and services. Alongside this, DWP has committed to a mandatory 2-day mental health awareness training for all its frontline staff
  • The government’s Online Safety Bill will – if passed – introduce legislation to tackle harmful online suicide and self-harm content, and better support bereaved parents and coroners in accessing data in the event of the death of a child
  • Government will take a leading role in tackling methods of suicide, collaborating with partners across the world in policy, law enforcement and society more broadly to limit access, reduce awareness, and share research, evidence and lessons learned. This will include seeking to tackle at source the suppliers of harmful substances for the purposes of suicide.
  • Working with DWP, DHSC will look for opportunities to improve the government’s role in supporting employers to improve the support they provide for the mental wellbeing of themselves and their employees. This will include working with the Health and Safety Executive to explore options for revising its first aid guidance, and other relevant guidance, to emphasise the importance of parity of managing risks to mental and physical health in the workplace
  • British Transport Police is rolling out bereavement support training for officers who may be the first contact for families, friends and loved ones after someone has died, and the Support After Suicide Partnership will continue to offer support to local areas to embed suicide bereavement services, in line with their Core Standards. This will support the roll-out of more consistent, high-quality bereavement support.
  • The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) within DHSC is developing a new nationwide near real-time suspected suicide surveillance system that, once launched, will improve the early detection of and timely action to address changes in suicide rates or trends. This is due to launch in 2023.
  • The National Police Chiefs’ Council, OHID and local authorities will work together to explore opportunities for improving data collection and data sharing in all areas. This includes building on work to identify and record where an individual resides as well as the location in question. This should improve understanding, provide appropriate support and guidance for future lessons learned, and help direct support to try and intervene at locations of concern.

Actions to support mental health and wellbeing will also contribute to preventing suicides. Actions outlined in the strategy that will support this include:

  • Continued roll out of mental health support teams in schools and colleges, with 50% of schools expected to be covered by April 2025
  • DfE has set a target for all universities to join the University Mental Health Charter Programme by September 2024 so that they are taking a whole-university approach to mental health
  • DfE is also supporting the higher education mental health implementation taskforce, which will consider how mental health and suicide prevention can be improved for a wide cohort of students across different higher education providers and set out recommendations by May 2024
  • The NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan sets out steps we will take to boost the mental health workforce and NHSE continues to transform community mental health services.