Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department issues on which agencies within local authorities should have responsibility for overall leadership of local suicide prevention plans.

Public Health England recently published guidance for local authorities on how to develop a multi-agency suicide prevention partnership; how to make sense of local and national data; and how to develop a suicide prevention strategy and action plan. With this guidance in place, it is for local authorities and their partners to decide which agencies should take leadership at a local level depending on local circumstances.