Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to provide suicide prevention support for men.

From 2019/20, we are investing £57million in suicide prevention through the NHS Long Term Plan. This will see investment in every area by 2023/24 to support local suicide prevention plans and establish suicide bereavement support services. We have ensured that this funding is testing different approaches to reaching men in local communities.

We also announced on 9 May 2022 that 113 suicide prevention voluntary, community and social enterprises received a share of £5.4 million funding in 2021/22 to prevent suicide in high-risk groups, including men. In addition, every local authority area has a suicide prevention plan in place, and the guidance we issued to local authorities highlights the importance of working across all local services, including the voluntary sector, to target high risk groups such as men.

The Government launched a public call for evidence on what can be done across Government in the longer term to support mental health, wellbeing and suicide prevention. The call for evidence closed on 7 July 2022 and we are currently analysing over 5,000 responses received.