Suicide Risk Assessment Tools in the NHS

Andrew Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ms Dorries]

If I may continue my speech, I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend on that point.

The Government are committed to a culture of openness, honesty and transparency in the NHS. The legal duty of candour means that trusts need to be open and transparent with patients or their families when something appears to have caused, or could lead to, significant harm. Trusts could face action from the CQC if they are seen to be failing to comply with that duty. I think that some good news will come out later in the year that will hopefully reassure my hon. Friend regarding a new culture that will develop within the NHS to encourage staff and clinicians to be more open about incidents as they happen, so that they share information and we can learn from such incidents.

Our national learning from deaths policy has introduced a more standardised approach to the way that trusts review, investigate and learn from deaths. The national guidance on learning from deaths, published in 2017, is about supporting trusts to become more willing to admit to and learn from mistakes, so that they reduce risks to future patients and prevent tragedies from happening in the first place. The guidance is clear that trusts must engage meaningfully and sensitively with bereaved families and carers as part of that process. I hope that, as a result of those measures, what the Bellerby family went through in 2015 will never be experienced by another family. To support our national policy, the CQC has strengthened its assessment of learning from deaths by trusts.

I will talk about what we are doing to reduce suicides across the NHS more widely. People in contact with mental health services account for around a third of all suicides in England, and arguably some of the more preventable ones. The overall suicide rate among people in contact with mental health services has reduced significantly over the last decade, but numbers remain too high. We must not lose sight of the fact that nobody under the care of NHS services should ever lose their life as a result of suicide. At the start of 2018, we therefore launched a zero suicide ambition, starting with mental health in-patients, but asking the NHS to be more ambitious and look to expand it to include all mental health patients.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

I know it is only the Minister’s third day, but the thing that we ask for more than anything else in a Minister is for somebody who cares about their portfolio. It is clear that my hon. Friend really cares about this issue. I am not unique in this, but as one of the few Members who has used NHS mental health services, I can attest to the real value and life-saving contribution that they make. I commend her decision to have that aspiration for zero deaths from suicide in the NHS.

In my constituency, there were 10 suicides last year. That is 10 families ripped apart and hundreds of lives broken as a result of those tragic decisions. Key to a brilliant service is the number of NHS nurses out in the community. Will the Minister, as she develops in her role, look at the numbers on the ground, so that we can be sure that everybody in our constituencies has access to mental health nurses, who can save lives?

[Ms Dorries]

I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend on some of those points as I whizz forward. We have asked all mental health trusts to put zero suicide ambition plans in place. As already outlined, NHS England is providing funding for suicide prevention to every local area, which includes investment in a national quality improvement programme to improve safety and suicide prevention in mental health services across the NHS.

We are also investing £2 million in the Zero Suicide Alliance, which aims to deliver an NHS with zero suicides across the system and in local communities. It is doing that through improved suicide awareness and prevention training, and developing a better culture of learning from deaths by suicide across the NHS. In June, the then Prime Minister announced that we would encourage all NHS staff to undertake the Zero Suicide Alliance training, which makes all NHS staff more aware and gives them a basic understanding of how to recognise when somebody may be in the space of wanting to take their own life.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton may be aware that yesterday the Office for National Statistics published the final suicide registrations data for 2018. Concerningly, there were substantial increases in the suicide rate amongst the general population, following three consecutive years of decreases. The latest figures are disappointing, but reinforce why suicide prevention continues to be a priority for the Government and for me personally.

Experts are clear that we need more data to draw firm conclusions from the latest data, and we will continue to work closely with academics and other experts to consider the data in more detail. There has also been an issue over the past two accounting periods surrounding coroners and the way the reporting of suicides takes place. We continue to take action to reduce the devastating impact of suicide. Every local area has a suicide prevention plan in place, and we are working with the local government sector to ensure the effectiveness of those plans. NHS England is also continuing to roll out funding to every local area to support suicide prevention planning.

We are continuing to improve mental health services. Under the NHS long-term plan published in January, there will be a comprehensive expansion of mental health services, with an additional £2.3 billion in real terms by 2023-24. Crisis care is a key element of the plan, which commits to ensuring that by 2023-24 anyone experiencing a mental health crisis can call NHS 111 and have 24/7 access to the mental health support that they need in their community.

We will set clear standards for access to urgent and emergency specialist mental health care. That will be supported by further mental health crisis care services by 2023-24, including 100% coverage of 24/7 crisis provision for children and young people, 100% coverage of 24/7 crisis resolution, and home treatment teams operating with best practice by 2021 and maintaining coverage to 2023-24. We are also investing £249 million to roll out liaison mental health teams in every acute hospital by 2020, which I hope addresses the question my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked earlier, to ensure that people who present at hospital with mental health needs get the appropriate care and treatment that they need.

To conclude, I again extend my sincere and heartfelt sympathies to the Bellerby family and friends. I assure them that we are doing everything that we can to prevent further suicides, as we understand their devastating impact on families and the communities affected. I thank my hon. Friend again for raising this very important issue. I would be happy to meet him, and Mr Bellerby and his family, to discuss their concerns in more detail.

Question put and agreed to.