CALLS have been made to improve suicide prevention in Scotland – including an overhaul of bereavement services for affected families.
The first report from the national suicide prevention leadership group (NSPLG), which was set up last year to support the delivery of the Every Life Matters suicide prevention plan, made 11 recommendations to the Scottish Government and local authority body Cosla.
The leadership group said progress should be made in the compiling of statistics on suicides; multi-agency reviews should be held into the suicides of people following time in prison, police custody or the care system; and funding a pilot scheme aimed at helping those bereaved by suicide.
Earlier this year, NHS figures showed the number of probable suicides had risen from 680 in 2017 to 784 in 2018 – an increase of 15%.
Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick accepted that the Scottish Government still had more to do to lower the number of people dying by suicide, including around reducing stigma around mental health. In a statement, released jointly with Cosla’s spokesman for health and social care, Peter Johnson, FitzPatrick said: “Over the past decade, we, as a country, have made real progress in reducing deaths by suicide, but there is still more to do. We firmly believe that every life matters and no death by suicide is acceptable, nor inevitable.
“The NSPLG has put the voices of those with direct experience at the centre of their work and the report shows their intention to put that experience alongside other evidence and a robust research approach to support the reduction in the rate of deaths by suicide.
“The Scottish Government and Cosla have given careful consideration to the contents of the report and recommendations made. We accept the recommendations and, further, both hope that these recommendations will be used to drive forward further work across key partners to prevent suicide.”
FitzPatrick added: “It is important that we continue to raise awareness and promote more understanding of suicide in our society and want a Scotland where help and support is available in every community to anyone contemplating suicide or to people who have lost a loved one to suicide.
“In response to the recommendations made in this report, the Scottish Government and Cosla will work together to facilitate engagement between key partners, both locally and nationally, to work with the NSPLG.”
A statement from FitzPatrick in the report added: “The stigma that surrounds suicide often stops us from seeking help and from feeling that we can help others. It is a powerful message that if we can ask, and tell, about suicide, we can save lives.”
Writing in the report, NSPLG chairwoman Rose Fitzpatrick, said: “We will continue to work towards a Scotland where suicide is preventable; where help and support is available to anyone contemplating suicide and to those who have lost a loved one to suicide.
“We will work to remove the stigma which prevents people asking for help, and also to empower people to give that help when it is needed. Because every life matters.”
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