National and local suicide prevention plans

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

Currently, every nation in the UK, and the Republic of 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 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.

To deliver effective national strategies policy-makers should:

• Set out ambitious targets for suicide reduction, particularly amongst vulnerable groups, to drive forward change across government.
• Prioritise action on suicide prevention across government departments and set out clear cross-government processes for implementation, governance and delivery.
• Provide ambitious leadership, resources, guidance and support to enable local policy-makers to put effective plans in place.
• Set out ring-fenced funding for suicide prevention and direct this towards evidence-based interventions that support the most vulnerable groups.

Download our policy briefing for more information.