Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that implementation of the suicide prevention strategy will take into account the needs of people with bipolar.

The new suicide prevention strategy for England is a five-year strategy which sets out the Government’s ambition for suicide prevention. It is a multi-sector and cross-government suicide strategy, with actions from a wide range of organisations that will be delivered over the next few years. The Department has established a £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund to run from 2023 to March 2025 to support voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations, including those who support people with bipolar, to deliver suicide prevention activity.

The Department, alongside NHS England, intends to explore opportunities to improve the quality of care for patients with mental health diagnoses and ensure compliance with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. This includes patients diagnosed with affective disorders, including depression and bipolar, who accounted for 42% of all patient suicides in England between 2010 and 2020.