Government Action on Suicide Prevention

Liz Twist Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing this enormously important debate, and for her excellent introduction to it.

The first thing I want to say is that, according to the most recent figures we have, 4,912 deaths by suicide were registered in 2020 in England alone. Men aged 45 to 49 are at greatest risk of death by suicide, and sadly for me, the north-east region is the area with the highest suicide rate, at 13.3 per 100,000. I am certainly unhappy about that and I am working with people locally to address the issue.

Some of the issues I want to touch on have already been covered, such as the refreshed national suicide prevention plan. This is hugely important, and something I have raised with Ministers before, as the Minister is aware. The consultation is welcome, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East that we must make sure that suicide is properly addressed within it. It is enormously important that we have that dedicated attention and drive forward innovation in this area.

We also have to talk about funding for suicide prevention services. The NHS long-term plan allocated £57 million for suicide prevention and bereavement services, which are hugely important to local areas, but £25 million of that funding only ran until 2021, and all funding supporting local areas will cease in 2023-24. We need renewed ringfenced funding, which is also something I have raised as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention. I know from speaking to my local services, both NHS and public health, how important it is that the funding is there to continue that collaboration and detailed work at local level.

Another thing I want to touch on is the situation for middle-aged men—one of the highest-risk groups. Suicide is the leading cause of death among men under 50 in the UK, and men account for three quarters of all suicides. As I have said, men aged 45 to 49 are most at risk; rates among this group have been persistently high for many years. Men who are less well off and live in the most deprived areas are up to 10 times more likely to die by suicide than more well-off men from the most affluent areas.

I am grateful to the Samaritans, who provide the secretariat to the APPG, for telling me about some in- depth research they have done with less well-off middle-aged men who have been struggling with their mental health, including having suicidal thoughts over a period of time. The themes those men told the Samaritans about included a lack of many meaningful social connections, often throughout their life, and having relationships connected to substance abuse. The other main theme was financial instability, which could include an erratic work history or long-term unemployment. There is no getting away from the fact that socioeconomic factors—deprivation, unemployment and other issues—have a real impact on the figures. It is really important to recognise those issues and work with colleagues in other Departments on them.

The Samaritans are calling for a focus on early intervention and support through the full range of statutory services that men may be in touch with. Research suggests that nine out of 10 middle-aged men who died by suicide in 2017 had been in contact with at least one frontline service or agency a week prior to their death. We also need further investment in voluntary sector and community provision to provide the services and initiatives that middle-aged men often find helpful in building connections and having conversations.

The other group that I want to refer to is people who self-harm. The all-party group conducted an inquiry into self-harm in younger people. We know that not all people who self-harm proceed to suicidal ideation or completing suicide, but there is a clear link. We need to ensure that people have readily available access to support at an early stage, because self-harm is such a strong risk factor for suicide.

In that inquiry, many people told us that they were considered too high-risk for primary mental health services, but not ill enough for secondary health services such as community mental health teams, or CAMHS in the case of younger people. We need to increase capacity and build expertise within talking therapy services to support people who self-harm, allow self-harm to be discussed in a safe, supportive way, and carry out assessments of people who disclose self-harm. We should get away from the stigma, because it still happens that, when people self-harm, they are thought to be attention-seeking. Instead, we need to ensure that it is picked up as a possible sign of a path. Preventive issues are also key. Having access to the appropriate services quickly is really important, so that people can get support.

On inequality and levelling up, I mentioned that people in disadvantaged communities faced the highest risk of dying by suicide, and that financial instability and poverty could increase suicide risk. Insecure income, unmanageable debt, unemployment and poor housing conditions all contribute to higher suicide rates, so we really need a cross-Government approach that recognises those risk factors and does something to address them. Specific actions would be to prioritise in the plan tackling inequalities as suicide risks across Government policy interventions, including through employment support, social security and economic planning. We should ensure that money advice and financial support is consistently available to everyone. We should better utilise what the Samaritans call the touchpoints of the state, such as work coaches in jobcentres and others that people come in contact with.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East mentioned the need for real-time suicide data. That is being developed, and it is absolutely essential. We cannot continue with the system of waiting for the coroner’s inquest to decide the cause of death. We need to know, so that we can highlight issues early and respond.

On the Online Safety Bill, which I have raised previously with Ministers, it is important that health takes a leading role to ensure that people do not have easier access to sites that promote self-harm or suicidal plans. There need to be new offences, and suicide and self-harm content needs to be addressed.

On alcohol use and suicide, I am sure others will speak in more detail, but we had a quotation from a Samaritans survey respondent:

“My hope is that professionals start to see that alcohol use is often the result of an underlying issue and not simply tell people to sober up without offering further support for how to deal with the root cause”

of the problem. We need integrated commissioning and provision of mental health and alcohol treatment services, training for all healthcare staff around the relationship between alcohol and suicide, and further funding for local drug and alcohol recovery and treatment services, many of which have seen huge cuts in the last 10 years.

Finally, suicide is preventable, not inevitable. It is important that we take real steps to ensure that we prevent unnecessary deaths and have real plans in place to make that happen.