Government Action on Suicide Prevention

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing this important debate, and for her opening speech.

Many people in the UK are, and have been, fighting silent battles for quite some time. The Government have shown their commitment to tackling this by removing the dedicated Minister for Suicide Prevention. I have struggled with mental health from a young age and in recent years, due to online abuse, threats and other life events, I have suffered with mental ill-health and suicidal thoughts. I have had to have brave conversations with my children and family but, luckily for me, I have pulled through due to my family support network, my friends and colleagues, and my access to therapy and coaching.

However, many people across the country do not have access to a strong network, as I know through my lived experience of my own struggles. Having been a trained Samaritan volunteer for a number of years in my local branch in Bradford, as a former NHS commissioner and a former chair of one of the largest black, Asian and minority ethnic mental health charities outside of London, I know that accessing mental health services through the NHS is extremely different. It has been extremely difficult previously, but covid-19 has exacerbated that, particularly in areas like Bradford.

The Office for National Statistics recorded that in 2020, 5,224 suicides were recorded; those were 5,224 preventable deaths. In 2021, 4.3 million referrals were made to mental health services in England, which the Royal College of Psychiatrists rightly labelled as an “unprecedented demand” for services. According to public health data, there were 99 cases of suicide among men or boys aged 10 or over in Bradford between 2017 and 2019; that means that the area’s male suicide rate was 15.6 in every 100,000 men, up from 14.6 between 2016 and 2018. Men accounted for the majority of suicide deaths in Bradford over that period.

While the Government have rightly committed to a national suicide prevention strategy to reduce the rate of suicides in England, clinical commissioning groups across the country are experiencing high demand, backlogs and stretched budgets at a local level. The reality is that the Government must not only reduce the backlogs but provide a fully-funded recovery plan for specialist mental healthcare provision, which should include race equality programmes, be impact-assessed, be UK-wide and also level up access to mental health provision.

A survey conducted by NHS Digital found that one in six children in England had a probable mental health condition in 2021. Over the years, many families in my constituency have contacted me regarding their inability to secure child and adolescent mental health services, such as autism assessments or mental health provision, for their children. Indeed, I have spoken about that in Westminster Hall.

It is shocking that children in my constituency of Bradford West have to wait longer for assessments and treatment than their wealthier peers. Psychiatrists have accurately described that disparity as a scandalous postcode lottery. A child in Bradford had to wait 807 days to access CAMHS services, while in Staffordshire children waited an average of seven days—800 fewer days than a child in Bradford. The Government must urgently address that disparity and provide a plan of action to ensure that people no longer suffer in silence. I look forward to the Minister’s response in today’s very important debate.