Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of people with depression who go on to die by suicide.

The Government’s measures to increase access to mental health services have supported a reduction in overall patient suicides when taking the rise in people accessing mental health services into account. We are investing more than ever in mental health and have introduced the first waiting times standards for mental health to ensure more people get timely access to necessary treatment.

Since it started in 2008, over four million people have entered the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme which aims to provide National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved services to people in England with common mental health conditions including depression. Of that four million, over 2.4 million have completed treatment and over 800,000 are in recovery.

We are also investing £25 million specifically on suicide prevention between 2017-21 and will work with NHS England and our other delivery partners to set out priorities for this funding.

Stigma remains a key barrier to people talking about mental health and suicide and to people seeking help. Further financial support of £12.5 million up to 2020-21 was announced earlier this year for the national Time to Change Programme which seeks to bring attitudinal change in people towards mental health issues. To date, their work has seen a reported change in over 3.4 million people’s attitudes to mental health.

We are also working with local authorities to implement local suicide prevention plans by the end of 2016. To ensure this happens, my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to local authorities and Public Health England published refreshed guidance in October, supported by masterclasses to support local authorities in developing robust plans. We will publish details of those local authorities which achieve this commitment including data on suicides in each area which will enable local areas to benchmark against national averages and other local areas.

We have welcomed the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health recommendations to:

- Achieve a 10% reduction in the national suicide rate by 2020/21;

- Ensure all local areas implement multi-agency suicide prevention plans by 2017;

- Improve the learning from all suicides in National Health Service-funded settings.

Finally, in terms of “committing suicide”, we have been making a conscious effort to avoid this language as it creates a sense of shame to friends and family of the bereaved, as well as perpetuates the stigma associated with suicide. Suggested alternatives are “kill themselves” or “die by suicide”.