APPG for Suicide and
Self-harm Prevention
Update report
Local suicide prevention plans
BACKGROUND OF INQUIRY
Purpose: To assess the extent of local implementation of the
national suicide prevention strategy for England.
Context:
a) New suicide prevention strategy for England (Sep 2012)
b) Previous APPG report on local suicide prevention (Jan 2013)
c) Restructure of NHS/public health commissioning (from Apr 2013)
Aims:
a) Provide snapshot of overall picture across the country, with policy
recommendations.
b) Provide detailed set of local information to highlight where more
needs to be done.
GATHERING OF INFORMATION
National survey of local authorities in 2014:
- Wrote to 152 Directors of Public Health
- Non-respondents followed up with FOI requests
- Response rate of over 98% (150 out of 152)
Local authorities were asked about their:
- Suicide prevention planning
- Multi-agency working
- Data collection (audit)
- Financial/staff resources
- Challenges (what more could government do to help)
SURVEY FINDINGS - 1
Does your area have a local suicide
prevention plan?
68
(From 152 local
authorities surveyed)
45
37
2
YES
In Development
NO
DNR
SURVEY FINDINGS - 2
Does your area have a multi-agency
suicide prevention group?
75
61
(From 152 local
authorities surveyed)
13
3
YES
In Development
NO
DNR
SURVEY FINDINGS- 3
Is suicide audit work carried out in
your area?
67
46
(From 152 local
authorities surveyed)
33
6
YES - Annually
YES - Less
frequently
NO
DNR
OVERALL FINDINGS
Audit
Action plan
Multi-agency group
65.8
69.1
57.9
30.3
29.6
40.1
Active (%)
Non-active (%)
DNR (%)
% of Local Authorities with local action plan
100
80
60
40
20
0
100 94.7
83.3 81.3
78.3
69.1 66.6
63.6
57.1
36.4
RECOMMENDATIONS - 1
The report provides detailed information about every local area.
PHE and others working in suicide prevention should use this
data to target and support areas without local plans/groups.
Local authorities told us they need practical evidence-based
examples of interventions that have worked well elsewhere.
More sub-regional groups could help to ensure activity across
a wider area in some parts of the country.
RECOMMENDATIONS - 2
Gathering local suicide data can be difficult in some areas.
Long-term:
- digitalised and wider range of routinely collected and
shared data from coroners.
Short-term:
- updated guidance/audit template for LAs
- new information sharing protocols (coroners)
- pooling of data over wider area
FURTHER INFORMATION
Full report available at: http://www.samaritans.org/news/allparty-committee-report-highlights-gaps-suicide-preventionprovision-england
For specific queries contact:
Madeleine Moon MP – moonm@parliament.uk
Dominic O’Brien, Samaritans – d.obrien@samaritans.org