‘Unprecedented’ plan to prevent suicides during covid-19 crisis

An “unprecedented” national suicide prevention plan has been launched by a government advisory group amid concerns suicides could increase during the covid-19 pandemic, HSJ can reveal.

The government’s national suicide prevention advisory group has developed the plan to address risks covid-19 could present to vulnerable people.

Chair of the group and the national adviser to the government on suicide prevention, Louis Appleby, told HSJ the plan was centred on getting far quicker access to data on suicides and self-harm episodes, which is the strongest indicator of suicide risk.

He said: “We are in unprecedented times, we haven’t got a lot of evidence on what happens to suicides rates during pandemics, so we’re having to infer from what we know generally to see where the risk might lie.

“This is a serious attempt, in some senses an unprecedented attempt to prevent a [physical health] crisis turning into a mental health crisis."

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Source: HSJ, 17 April 2020