Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on the number and proportion of people presenting at A&E feeling suicidal who are (a) given treatment, (b) referred to another service and (c) given no treatment or referral.

Data on the number and proportion of people presenting at accident and emergency (A&E) feeling suicidal who are given treatment, referred to another service and given no treatment or referral is not collected centrally. Through their A&E Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS Digital are able to identify patients who are recorded for ‘self-harm’ and patients diagnosed as having ‘psychiatric conditions’, but these are not specific to ‘suicidal’.

Through the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, we are committed to roll-out liaison mental health teams in general hospitals by 2020/21 with 50% of them meeting the core 24 standard. This means that teams of specially trained mental health professionals will be able to support people who present at emergency departments with mental health issues, which would include providing assessments and referring on to specialist mental health services or community teams.