Our Recommendations for Change

This month, we submitted evidence to the UK Government’s Mental Health Strategy Call for Evidence.

Our message was simple: suicide prevention must be at the heart of the new Mental Health Strategy.

Preventing suicide isn’t only about improving crisis services. It means designing funding, partnerships and accountability around reaching people earlier, providing holistic support, and preventing crisis before it occurs.

We make the case that:

• Suicide prevention must be everyone’s business. Many of the factors that contribute to suicidal crisis – including debt, housing, relationships and employment – sit outside healthcare, making cross-sector action essential.
• People need connected support, not fragmented systems. Too many are passed between services; effective care relies on coordination, trusted partnerships and addressing both emotional and practical needs.
• Support should come before people are ‘ill enough’. Prevention must be based on distress and need, not just diagnosis or thresholds, and should be gender-informed to account for the differing needs and ways in which men, women and those of different gender identities present.
• Specialist suicide prevention services should be scaled. Evidence from our work at James’ Place shows that rapid, compassionate support can significantly reduce suicidal distress, yet these services remain outside mainstream commissioning.
• Stronger national leadership and local accountability are needed, alongside better use of data to target risk and resources.

We hope the new Mental Health Strategy recognises the vital role that suicide prevention can play in saving lives.

Read more about the strategy here.