National and local suicide prevention plans

Government plans for suicide prevention exist at local and national level.

Currently, every nation in the UK, and Ireland, has a strategy for suicide prevention. We’re working with their governments to make sure these plans are as effective and ambitious as possible.

Nearly every local area in England now has a suicide prevention plan in place.

Samaritans has submitted evidence to the Government’s consultation on a new suicide prevention strategy for England. The strategy is an important chance to set the agenda for Government action on suicide prevention over the next decade.

Our submission covered many topics, but there were some stand out themes:

• The importance of early intervention to support people who are living with suicidality
• Approaching suicide prevention as a socioeconomic inequality issue
• Increasing Government accountability for suicide prevention, including a new target to reduce rates

You can read a summary of Samaritans’ submission below.

Alongside Samaritans’ response, we also encouraged supporters to put their views forward to the consultation. Over 200 supporters, many of whom have their own lived experience and/or volunteer for Samaritans, directly told the Government what action they thought needed to be taken through the new strategy.

Samaritans leads the Suicide Prevention Consortium, part of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance. Through the Consortium we spoke to over 50 people with lived experience of suicide, self-harm and / or alcohol or drug misuse about what they thought needed to change through the strategy. This insight was shared directly with Government and informed Samaritans’ response, and you can read the report below.

Samaritans will be at the forefront of ensuring that the strategy is as impactful as possible in achieving our vision of fewer people dying by suicide.

The Government’s Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in September 2023, makes clear that the actions the Government has committed to in the strategy were shaped and strengthened by people with lived experience of suicide.

Together with the National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA) we sought views from 114 people with lived experience of suicide and self-harm or of using Samaritans’ service about how much they felt they contributed to the strategy.

You can read about what we did, what we found and our recommendations in our report: Partners in Prevention

Our 2025 report ‘suicide prevention principles: from policy to practice’ supports implementation of the principles of no wrong door to accessing support, and person-centred care.

With our partners in the Suicide Prevention Consortium, we call for policy makers and practitioners to take sustained and targeted action to improve care by:

• Fostering collaboration: collaboration – between services, staff and people receiving support – must be at the heart of service design and delivery. Services need to work in a joined-up way, collaborating with each other and the people they support. This includes improving technology and ensuring data can be shared securely, as well as involving people with lived experience in design, implementation and evaluation of services.
• Prioritising inclusion: services should take an inclusive, holistic approach, recognising individuality and the diverse ways people access support. A person’s identity, background or specific needs must not be a barrier to accessing high quality care. Individuals should be empowered to make decisions and engage openly with healthcare professionals without fear of judgment. Accessible and culturally sensitive approaches are essential for building trust and ensuring meaningful support.
• Raising staff awareness and building confidence: staff awareness should be raised, and ongoing training provided, to boost confidence in delivering compassionate, patient-centred care. It is also vital that good practice is recognised and celebrated – many practitioners are already delivering compassionate, inclusive care. The principles of ‘no wrong door’ and person-centred care should not, therefore, be presented as another new initiative.
• Supporting the workforce: it is essential to prioritise the mental health and wellbeing of staff, so they can effectively support people affected by suicide. Staff need time and space to reflect on their experiences of supporting people experiencing suicidality, as well as support to manage the impact of providing care. These are crucial for creating supportive environments for staff, minimising the potential impact of compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma, which impact both on the wellbeing of staff and on their ability to provide optimal care.

Samaritans campaigned for all local authorities to have suicide prevention plans in place but until now, no-one has known what these plans included.

Our joint report with the University of Exeter is the first ever nation-wide view of suicide prevention planning within local authorities in England. This is critical to understanding what needs to happen next to save more lives.

Our full report provides an overview of activity in plans, with regional analysis and recommendations against a number of priority areas and can be downloaded below.

We found that a good start has been made in suicide prevention planning. Almost all local authorities have established a suicide prevention plan and multi-agency group.

Our recommendations

Local plans include a wealth of ambition to prevent suicide. But good planning alone does not prevent suicide. The focus should now be on ensuring actions are delivered effectively to save lives.

This can be challenging in the context of cuts to local public health budgets.

Our report outlines a series of local and national recommendations that will support this transition.