Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of collecting data on the number of callouts police attend to (a) attempted suicides and (b) suicides in progress.

The Home Office does not collect data from police on calls about suicidal ideation or where an apparent suicide is in progress and has no current plans to do so.

The College of Policing sets the professional standards for police in England and Wales. The College’s core guidance includes the initial training for officers under the Policing Education Qualifications Framework which incorporates autism, learning disabilities, mental health and vulnerabilities. Through this, officers are taught to assess vulnerability and amend their approaches as required.

The College further promotes the need for frameworks to assess vulnerability, to aid in consistent identification, support decision making, and to trigger appropriate safeguarding action. Such principles and practices are set out in a number of college products, including the Detention and Custody Authorised Professional Practice (APP) and the Mental Health APP which has guidance on suicide prevention and bereavement response.

Policing is operationally independent, and it is a matter for the chief constables of each force to decide which additional training their officers should undertake.