Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of gender on suicide.

The Government does not collect figures on, or issue policy for, suicide prevention in the devolved administrations. However the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness Annual Report of July 2014 (NCI) included a table comparing suicide rates across the United Kingdom until 2012. The findings for the five years up to 2012 from that report are shown in the following table:

Suicide rates per 100,000 of population by UK country 2008-2012:

Source: National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness Annual Report of July 2014.

Note: * Death coding rules changed in Scotland and rates for 2011 and 2012 are counted under these new rules. This means that overall numbers of suicides for these years are not directly comparable to previous years.

The NCI Annual Report of July 2014 also included tables on suicide rates by gender for each country of the UK. The figures for the five years up to 2012 from that report are shown in the following table:

Number of suicides in the general population, by gender:

Source: National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness Annual Report of July 2014.

Note: * Indicates the number of suicides using the old death coding rules.

The NCI Annual Report of July 2014 included tables on suicide rates by certain age-groups for males in England and Scotland. The figures for the five years up to 2012 from that report are shown in the following tables:

Male suicide rates per 1000,000 population in those aged 25-34, 45-54 and 55-64 in England:

Source: National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness Annual Report of July 2014.

Male suicide rates per 1000,000 population in those aged 25-34, 45-54 and 65+ in Scotland:

Source: National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness Annual Report of July 2014.

Over the past 10 years, good progress has been made in reducing the suicide rate in England. Three-year rolling averages are generally used for monitoring purposes, in preference to single year rates, in order to avoid undue attention to year on year fluctuations instead of the underlying trend.

Suicide rates in England are low compared to other European countries and have steadily reduced, with the lowest number ever recorded in 2007, but with a small rise since then. However, around 4,500 people took their own life in 2012 so suicide continues to be a major public health issue, particularly at a time of uncertainty.

Our suicide prevention strategy, Preventing suicide in England: A cross-government outcomes strategy to save lives published in September 2012 already recognises men, particularly young and middle-aged men, as being the highest risk group for suicide.

This message was reinforced in the first annual report on the Strategy, published in January 2014, which acknowledged that ‘men aged 35-54 years are now the group with the highest suicide rate. Understanding and addressing the factors associated with suicide in men, or working to limit their negative impact, will help to reduce population suicide risks’.

Further, at the time of the first annual report Professor Louis Appleby, Director of the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, wrote to all Directors of Public Health and Health and Wellbeing Board leads to draw the report to their attention.

We published Preventing suicide in England: Assessment of impact on equalities alongside the suicide prevention strategy. The assessment acknowledges the duty of the public sector to advance equality and reduce inequality which was established by the Equality Act 2010. Recognition of the implications for the people sharing protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010 was an integral part of the process of developing the suicide prevention strategy.

We also published an Impact Assessment alongside the consultation on the suicide prevention strategy in July 2011. This assessment recommends that the financial benefits of the strategy for the ‘main affected groups’, will include savings from averted emergency treatment and the involvement of police and coroner at around £2 million for a ten-year period, at an opportunity cost of around £4 million. There are also large savings from reduction in fatalities - valuation of life – at around £7 billion. Although the Impact Assessment does not apportion any of these savings to specific impact groups, the strategy’s focus on ‘high-risk’ groups would specifically include the highest risk group, men in the 35-54 year age bracket.