Mental Illness: Suicide

Department of Health written question – answered at on 26 March 2015.

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Photo of Luciana Berger Luciana Berger Shadow Minister (Public Health)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients discharged from mental health in-patient care have taken their own life within (a) one week and (b) two weeks of that discharge in each year since 2010; and how many investigations have been undertaken into those deaths.

Photo of Norman Lamb Norman Lamb The Minister of State, Department of Health

The first three months after discharge remain a time of particularly high suicide risk – this is especially true in the first 1-2 weeks. Between 2002 and 2012 there were 3,225 suicides in the United Kingdom by mental health patients in the post-discharge period, 18% of all patient suicides.

Post-discharge suicides were most frequent in the first week after leaving hospital when 380 deaths occurred, an average of 35 per year.

The number and proportion who died in the first week after discharge has not changed over the report period.

380 of the 3,225 people counted as post-discharge suicides between 2002-12 died in the first week after leaving hospital. 292 people died in the second week.

The total number of people who died within three months of in-patient discharge is, as follows:

2010: 202

2011: 220

2012: 177 (estimate)

We have reviewed the serious incident framework (due to be launched for April 2015) to support better recognition, reporting and investigation of serious incidents (which would include suicide/ self-inflicted death, but also other serious incidents affecting people with mental health needs). We are also exploring changes to the Serious Incident reporting system (STEIS) database to enable incidents, risks, trends and opportunities for learning to be more easily identified.

This Government is seeking to change the culture that suicide is inevitable for some people. In January this year the Deputy Prime Minister announced our ambition for ‘zero suicides’. This set out an aspiration for every part of the NHS to commit to a ‘zero suicide’ ambition. This ambition has already been adopted in some local areas and we are certain that this kind of approach can work to dramatically reduce suicides.

Pioneering work in Liverpool, the South-West and in the East of England means that health workers are already focusing on how they care for people with mental health conditions with a view to preventing suicide. The Deputy Prime Minister called on the health service to look at this work being done by these three pioneering areas.

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