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

Supporting Delivery of the Suicide Prevention Action Plan 2018-2022

Over the last four years the NSPLG, including our Lived Experience Panel (LEP) and Academic Advisory Group (AAG) have worked with our Delivery Leads (DL) to support implementation of the Suicide Prevention Action Plan (SPAP) - Every Life Matters.

Much has been achieved and our partnerships across Scottish society continue to grow. Nevertheless each day we hold in mind that every life lost to suicide is a tragedy; a person who may never have known how much they mattered. We know there is always more to do.

Local Suicide Prevention Action Planning - Action 1: The launch of a new toolkit has been helping local communities develop effective suicide prevention plans and supporting the work of the Local Suicide Prevention Leads who are so passionate about saving lives. At least 21 local authorities have made use of the toolkit, with more to come. Their role in suicide prevention is critical, because local people know their own communities and what works best to support them.

Suicide Prevention Training - Action 2: Removing stigma around the word ‘suicide’ continues to be critically important, as does providing people in all walks of life with the knowledge and confidence to make a difference. NHS Education for Scotland and Public Health Scotland have developed new multi-level suicide prevention resources for those working in health settings, viewed over 100,000 times on NHS Scotland’s Turas platform.

Public Awareness and Engagement - Action 3: In recent years there has been an important shift towards people talking more openly about mental health and wellbeing. Yet speaking specifically about suicide remains difficult for many, often because of a persistent myth that talking about suicide may put the idea in someone’s head and could cause them to take their own life.

In fact, research shows that asking someone specifically if they are having thoughts of suicide can enable them to talk about it and encourage them to seek help. A pivotal part of our work has been focussed on dispelling this myth, encouraging people to become confident in talking about suicide, knowing that starting a conversation could help save a life.

For that reason, our social movement and public awareness campaign United to Prevent Suicide has become amongst the most high-profile and visible of our programmes of work over the last four years.

A national TV advertising campaign, overhead motorway signs and railway station signage launched our United to Prevent Suicide UTPS() movement, to which around 4,000 people have directly signed up, with tens of thousands more following and engaging on social media.

Subsequent stages of the campaign have worked with partners across professional, amateur, national, local and community football clubs to harness the extraordinary power of football - particularly to reach men, who make up three quarters of those who lose their lives to suicide. The award-winning FC United to Prevent Suicide initiative has become “Scotland’s second team”, with its tweets being seen over 8 million times. FC United has worked with male and female role models across the sport to tell the powerful stories of the impacts of suicide in their own lives, aided by the support of Scotland’s men’s and women’s national football teams.

Suicide Bereavement Support - Action 4: People who lose a loved one to suicide are themselves at heightened risk of attempting to take their own lives. Our Suicide Bereavement Support Pilot, led by Penumbra Mental Health and Support in Mind Scotland, has now been in place for over a year in the NHS Ayrshire & Arran and NHS Highland regions. Working closely with Police Scotland it offers support to every family within 24 hours of being bereaved by suicide. Independent evaluation has been positive and it is hoped that ultimately every family in Scotland bereaved by suicide will be offered support wherever they live.

Suicidal Crisis Support - Action 5: We have worked closely with our LEP on support for those who are in immediate suicidal crisis. Rather than develop another model of crisis support we believe that the culture at each and every point of contact for people in crisis is the key to better support. We have recommended an approach focussed on Time, Space and Compassion which is now to be rolled out across relevant public agencies.

Digital Suicide Prevention - Action 6: Online spaces carry risks for those who are vulnerable to suicide, but they are also places which can provide help and support. In partnership with NHS Inform, new Surviving Suicidal Thoughts resources have been launched online aimed at supporting people who are in suicidal distress. These have been designed with and featuring people who have themselves experienced suicidal thoughts. A related proactive professional media campaign aims to reduce the chances of vulnerable people finding unhelpful or harmful results when using search engines.

Understanding Risk of Suicide - Action 7: Working with our AAG and other experts by experience and research, we have focussed on improving understanding of why certain groups are at greater risk of suicide. For example, we know from research into experiences of adversely racialised people that those who live in the most deprived areas are three times more likely to die by suicide and that the experiences of those in adversely racialised communities make them less likely to seek help. Improving our understanding by working directly with those so disproportionately affected by the risk of suicide will continue to be vital.

Children and Young People - Action 8: A strong focus of our work has continued to be on keeping young people safe. A new NSPLG Youth Advisory Group (YAG) has recently been established, in partnership with Children in Scotland and the University of Stirling. It will ensure that young people aged 16-25 years are directly involved in implementation of the new suicide prevention strategy.

Our Better Tomorrow campaign was recently launched to engage young people aged 16-20 years directly with helpful content on suicide prevention. Co-produced and tested with around 300 young people, it is spear-headed by three well-known TikTok influencers, and also stretches across YouTube and Instagram.

Learning from Evidence by Experience - Action 9: At every turn, those living with the impacts of suicide have been at the heart of our approach. Our NSPLG Lived Experience Panel (LEP), which is supported by SAMH, has been recognised by the World Health Organisation as an example of international best practice. LEP members have been involved in all our work and beyond, for example in suicide prevention policy design, service development, procurement, evaluation and communications.

Learning from Academic Evidence - Action 9: Supporting every strand of our work, our NSPLG Academic Advisory Group (AAG) has provided deep professional academic insight and international research evidence to ensure that our work and recommendations are well founded and objectively sound.

Reviewing Deaths by Suicide - Action 10: Learning from the circumstances in which someone takes their life is important both in itself and in improving our understanding of how best to prevent suicide. Currently only deaths by suicide of people who have engaged with a public agency in the months beforehand are investigated. Work has been taking place in three areas across Scotland to help develop sensitive and effective processes for reviewing all deaths by suicide.

A timeline highlighting a range of milestones over the last four years is set out below, with examples under each of the SPAP’s ten actions of how people have come together across the NSPLG network and beyond to make a difference.

These initiatives have helped to increase suicide prevention awareness and confidence among all of us, whilst providing tools and support to those at risk and directly affected by suicide. We believe we can say with confidence that Scotland has never been more focused on preventing suicide.

Scotland’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 - Creating Hope Together Every Life Matters. puts local and national partnerships at the heart of its approach, and will build on the strong work undertaken since 2018 to deliver the Suicide Prevention Action Plan -