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

Conclusion

As members of Scotland’s first National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group it has been our privilege individually and collectively to play our part over the last four years in supporting delivery of the Suicide Prevention Action Plan - Every Life Matters.

Our decision in 2018 to put those living with experience of the impacts of suicide at the heart of everything we do led us to establish our NSPLG Lived Experience Panel - and lately our NSPLG Youth Advisory Group. This decision has made our work over the last four years transformational rather than transactional. Giving lived experience equal weight with the academic evidence provided by establishing our NSPLG Academic Advisory Group has given our work legitimacy.

Much has changed over the last four years and we know post-pandemic pressures and the cost of living crisis are having a significant impact on people’s life circumstances and mental wellbeing. While it is heartening that the number of lives lost to suicide has fallen in each of the last two years and the current rate of suicide in Scotland has now fallen below the five year average, much remains to be done.

In our June 2020 Covid-19 Statement we recommended that the Scottish Government and COSLA collaborate to develop a long-term, cross-policy, outcomes-based suicide prevention strategy for Scotland. We warmly welcome the recent publication of Scotland’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 — Creating Hope Together and commend its vision to reduce the number of suicide deaths in Scotland, whilst tackling the inequalities which contribute to suicide.

We are confident that the passion and commitment we have shared over the last four years with all those who work so hard to save lives from the tragedy of suicide will not falter over the next ten years.

As Scotland’s NSPLG we commit unreservedly to go on playing our part in saving lives from the tragedy of suicide, and to help others play their parts, because suicide prevention must continue to be everyone’s business.

National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group

October 2022