Annual report on progress 2006
The fourth annual report on progress in implementing the national suicide prevention strategy for England was published on Wednesday 11 April 2007.
Download it here (PDF 740KB)
The suicide prevention target is to reduce the death rate from suicide and injury (and poisoning) of undetermined intent by at least a fifth by the year 2010 (from the Our Healthier Nation baseline rate of 9.2 deaths per 100,000 population in 1995/6/7 to 7.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2009/10/11).
Latest available data (for the 3 years 2003/4/5) show a rate of 8.5 deaths per 100,000 population – a reduction of 7.4% from the 1995/6/7 baseline.
Key points
- The suicide rate for the single year 2005, the most recent available, was the lowest recorded, reversing the slight rise in 2004.
- The overall rate of suicide amongst the general population is at the lowest rate on record.
- An encouraging fall in the rate of suicide amongst young men under the age of 35. There is now clear evidence of a sustained fall in suicide amongst this group.
- A fall in the rate of self-inflicted deaths in prisons to 70 in 2005/6, a 17 per cent reduction compared with last year. For the first time the 20% reduction originally set in the national strategy was met.
- A fall in the number of suicides amongst mental health in-patients from 217 in 1997 to 154 in 2004 (the most recent year for which figures are available).
The report also says that more needs to be done to reduce the number of people in contact with mental health services who take their own lives. The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness report, Avoidable Deaths, published last year, estimated that 56 mental health patients discharged from hospital, died following non-compliance with medication or loss of contact with services. Supervised Community Treatment (SCT), a measure to improve clinical risk management that the Government is introducing in its Mental Health Bill, has the potential to help prevent those deaths.
Having a severe mental illness is a known risk factor of suicide and a significant number of suicides occur during in-patient care or shortly after discharge. Avoidable Deaths showed around 200 suicides a year - or 14 per cent of all suicides - follow non-compliance with treatment. Better compliance with treatment and closer supervision were highlighted by clinicians as the main ways of reducing suicide risk.