Board members to receive a report and presentation on Suicide Prevention.

Sarah Lees, Public Health Consultation provided the Board with a report on Suicide Prevention Work.  It was reported that –

      (a)        suicide is a major societal issue;

(b)        the average cost to society of each death was £1.45 million;

(c)           suicide was the commonest cause of death in men under the age of 35 years;

(d)          70% of those people who die by suicide were not in receipt of mental health services;

(e)        3 times more men than women die by suicide;

(f)          suicides were not inevitable, they were preventable;

Highlighted to the Board the local system issues –

·                     recognition of severe distress by services and of high risk groups and importance of addressing this as soon as possible;

·                     information sharing across organisations and services;

·                     access to services 24-7 for those vulnerable people who are below threshold for mental health services.

The following comments were made by Board members –

(g)           not acceptable that vulnerable people are being turned away and desperately need help;

(h)          completely rethink system and stop looking at the higher grade services and look at providing lower cost services for many more people;

(i)            making sure there is appropriate support for people and ensuring we identify those not on the radar.

The Mental Health Crisis Concordat has been signed up nationally by all the key players and one of the aims is access to support before crisis point but also urgent and emergency access to crisis care making mental health on parity to physical heath.