National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group (NSPLG): fourth annual report

Introduction

This is our fourth annual report, summarising progress in supporting delivery of Scotland ’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan - Every Life Matters over the four years since its publication in August 2018.

Our support for delivery of the Suicide Prevention Action Plan (SPAP) has continued to draw legitimacy from and be founded in the experience of those living with the impacts of suicide, those working in academic research and professional suicide prevention practitioners. Our NSPLG Lived Experience Panel (LEP) and NSPLG Academic Advisory Group (AAG), established at the outset, have continued to be at the heart of our work over the past four years. We are now in the process of establishing our new NSPLG Youth Advisory Group (YAG).

In August 2022, National Records of Scotland (NRS) published the suicide statistics for 2021. We welcome the fact that fewer people died by suicide in 2021 than in 2020 and 2019, but each of the 753 lives lost last year is a person grieved for, whose death has impacted hugely on those they left behind. Scotland’s suicide rate is now below the five year average, but the enduring impacts of the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis put pressures on people’s life circumstances. We must redouble our efforts to tackle the social determinants of suicide, including poverty and inequalities.

On 29 September 2022 Scotland ’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy - Creating Hope Together was launched. Our role will now evolve to focus on supporting the Scottish Government, COSLA and the new suicide prevention Delivery Collective to achieve our shared vision: to reduce the number of suicide deaths in Scotland, whilst tackling the inequalities which contribute to suicide.

In reporting on work over the last four years we know we must continue over the next ten years to do all we can to ensure that no suicide is inevitable and that everyone in Scotland has a role to play in saving lives from the tragedy of suicide.