Government Action on Suicide Prevention

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and commending her work—she is an absolute champion for this matter. She spoke extremely powerfully on the need for data collection, which I think is the crux of taking good service delivery forward. She spoke very emotively about her own personal experience, and her words resonated with many people here when she advocated for services for those families who are left behind. I thank her for being a champion of this important issue. It is often neglected, and is something that for many years has been difficult for people to speak about. The more that it can be spoken about and raised in this place, the better for everybody right across the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) spoke about how difficult it is to access mental health services, particularly for children and young people. I think there are gaps—chasms, actually—in waiting times across the United Kingdom that need to be addressed. As chair of the all-party parliamentary health group, I hear about that constantly. No matter where someone lives, it is very difficult for them to access services. It takes far too long and people are falling through those gaps. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) spoke about the importance of levelling up regional and gender disparities. I am interested in the point she made about adult males being particularly at risk.

There has been good work going on across Scotland— I am sure these exist across the United Kingdom— through the Men’s Sheds developments. I have two in my own constituency that I have visited—one in Lesmahagow and Blackwood and one in the Stonehouse area. They are doing fantastic work to reduce loneliness and isolation, and to create environments where people can begin to speak about issues and receive important social support from like-minded people. We still have a society where there is more stigma for men who speak up about those issues, so such developments are crucial. The hon. Member for Blaydon is also an advocate for this issue in her role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention. She has made key recommendations for the Government to take forward.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) spoke about the LGBT community and about alcohol-related harm. What is key—and I know this from my professional life prior to Parliament, working in psychology —is that often having an addiction diagnosis on someone’s medical records can make it more difficult for them to access mental health services. That just should not be the case because, exactly as he says, having alcohol or drug-related problems is, in itself, a risk factor for suicide. Therefore, it should be something that heightens people’s access to services, rather than diminishing it. I would therefore like to thank him once again for the work that he does on these matters.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—who is in his place in most of the debates that I happen to attend because he is such a strong advocate for his constituents—spoke about the devastating suicide rates in Northern Ireland, and something else that is very important, which was the impact of and bullying on social media. I think that that is something that really must be tackled. I know, from some work I have been doing with the Diana award in Parliament, that it has been supporting young people’s advocates across schools in the UK—anti-bullying ambassadors to give children and young people peer support—because often young people prefer to speak to peers than to parents. I know that myself, particularly from having adolescents at home who do not want to be seen with or speak to me at this stage in their life.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) also raised an important constituency case—I am so pleased that the family is here today—that families are not listened to enough. Well, if we are not listening to families, who are we listening to? Families know people better than anybody else. I think that long gone is the time when we say, “Well, professionals know best.” It should be an assessment that involves everybody, wherever possible. Families who want to reach out to services are doing that because they have anxiety that something that is traumatic is going to happen in that case. They know that person better than anybody else, so they must be listened to.

When I worked in mental health, the training and risk assessment were very clear; it is not a static assessment; it is dynamic—it changes. That is the thing about it. The British Psychological Society issued guidance on risk assessment. A risk assessment is not a questionnaire; it is a clinical judgment with tools that help that. However, it also must highlight risk indicators. Importantly, it is not just that an assessment is completed; it is that there is a risk-management plan as well—people are aware of their risk indicators, they know when risk is heightened, they know who to seek help from, and that there is a risk-management plan that can protect them and prevent harm coming from risk. The point made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park is key, and I wish her all the support that I can give for her campaign for these matters to be taken forward and for key frontline staff to be given adequate training in risk assessment.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary health group, I hear constantly that the bar is set too high for access to services. Some of the things said are that because someone might have a personality disorder, they could not benefit from treatment. Well, we know that people with personality disorder diagnoses still suffer from mental distress, so of course they should be able to access treatment for that mental distress. That should not be a barrier to treatment. There are also psychological therapies that have been shown to be clinically valid for use in those cases, but people cannot access them.

People who have drug or alcohol problems may present at accident and emergency and be told, “Well, you’ll have to deal with your addiction and then come back and deal with your mental health problem.” However, that is not right either, because we know about the risk and the importance of services being integrated and created for dual diagnosis. Where people have more than one clinical condition, it is very important that both are treated together because, as has been said, mental health might be one of the triggers for alcohol and drug use, which, of course, exacerbates it.

[Dan Carden]

It is really important that we send a clear message that it is absolutely nonsense to send people away to recover from their addiction without the mental health support they need, as happens up and down the country. We should send a clear message that the guidance needs to be rewritten, and that support for mental health and addiction services must be delivered.

[Dr Cameron]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that important point. I wholeheartedly agree. If we are serious about preventing harm and suicide, and about helping people, their care must be looked at holistically. We cannot syphon off parts of people’s diagnosis and say, “Deal with this first, then that.” People’s lives are not like that. As we know, the formulation means that it is interwoven, so both conditions must be dealt with simultaneously.

Other things I have heard include, “It is attention-seeking,” “It is a behavioural issue,” “It is not a psychiatric illness,” “There’s no diagnosis,” but surely people who suffer acute psychological distress should have access to services without having to qualify in diagnostic terms as having a major mental illness. Many people need help at such time, and it should not need to be exacerbated to the point of mental illness if we can use prevention. Equally, many people who go on to harm themselves and even commit suicide never have a diagnosis of a mental illness such as depression or schizophrenia, but they still deserve help, so there must be services for them.

GP access is very important, as has been said. I know from my constituents and from chairing the all-party parliamentary health group that that is another issue that must be dealt with. People find it very difficult to see GPs face to face, and if they are in mental distress, speaking to receptionists on the telephone is really not adequate. They must be able to sit down and speak to a GP they know. It is hard enough to open up at that point, but without that access, I am afraid that so many people will fall through the net.

The Scottish Government have committed £120 million for a recovery fund following covid. They are committed to doubling the current £1.4 million of annual funding for suicide prevention, and they have a new strategy coming out.

I thank the services in my constituency, which have been on the frontline when people have been languishing on waiting lists, including the Trust Jack Foundation, set up because someone lost their life. The lady in charge of it is a wonderful individual who has taken her personal tragedy and turned it into support for other people across our constituency. Victorious People in East Kilbride is providing counselling for young people, and Talk Now in East Kilbride is providing services for trauma survivors. That is just to name a few of the fantastic services that have been developed.

I plead with the Minister to fill those gaps and make sure there are services for people suffering acute mental distress, crisis and suicidal ideation. They should not have to have a mental illness diagnosis to access treatment. That is why we are losing people, and families are being hurt in the process.