How the 10 Year Health Plan could support suicide prevention

Since 2023, Samaritans has led the Suicide Prevention Consortium, working alongside National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA), Support After Suicide Partnership (SASP), and people with lived experience. Our overall aim has been to bring the voice of people with experience of suicide to policy makers, to improve suicide prevention in England.

In January and February 2026, we hosted six online sessions to hear from people with lived experience of suicide to better understand how the 10 Year Health Plan can support people at risk or with experience of suicidality, and maximise impact on suicide prevention.

The Plan was published by Government last summer, setting out how the NHS will be ‘reinvented through three radical shifts’: hospital to community, analogue to digital, sickness to prevention.

We're disappointed that the Plan says so little about suicide prevention. However, we’re also determined to see this prioritised as part of implementation – much of the detail remains to be seen.

In our recent engagement, we focused on two key developments:

• Neighbourhood Health Centres, which will bring a range of NHS and community services closer to home.
• Expanded NHS digital tools and online services, including development of the NHS App.

However, our findings are relevant to suicide prevention in the NHS much more widely.

In our sessions, people with experience of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, or bereavement by suicide, described what they hoped to see in the NHS of the future. Conversations were wide-ranging, but several clear themes emerged.

The need to prioritise suicide prevention, as well as mental and emotional health and wellbeing more widely, was stressed again and again.

People talked about crisis support, early-intervention, and help with self-care and prevention.

People emphasised the need for ‘safe spaces’ — both online and face-to-face — where they could open up and receive care and kindness.

People were clear that services – whether in a Neighbourhood Health Centre, online or elsewhere – must be inclusive and genuinely accessible to all, taking practical steps to include marginalised groups.

There must be decisive action to prioritise collaboration and integration, with services and staff working together with the person at the centre, delivering coordinated care, with compassion.

Digital services may be great for some people, but they can never replace the power of human connection. There was a real consensus that the best way of delivering on these aims was to empower individuals with choice and control, and to coproduce services with people with lived experience and local communities, and to continue this involvement in the spirit of ongoing improvement.

There was a sense of ‘cautious optimism’ about Neighbourhood Health Centres.

They could improve accessibility and provide a better experience. However, they must explicitly prioritise suicide prevention, alongside mental and emotional health and wellbeing.

It was hoped that they could support tackling stigma and improve crisis support. The three overarching themes were to ensure that the Centres offer a safe and welcoming environment, improved access to NHS services and support, and are embedded as part of communities.

People were more nervous about the expansion of digital tools and services in the NHS. Whilst 24/7 access to crisis support and tools for self-care and self-management are great benefits, there must always continue to be human connection, and online safety must be prioritised.

All NHS digital tools and services must have proper safeguards in place for people who may be at risk of suicide. Reassurance is needed about accessibility, inclusion, personalisation and use of data. Key words in these discussions were safety, choice and control.

We will share our findings report (available in the 'Find out more section, below) with relevant teams in Government and beyond, and continue to push for suicide prevention to be prioritised as part of the implementation of the 10 Year Health Plan.

Find out how to share your lived experience with Samaritans

Discover ways to get involved in our work

There’s also the opportunity to join the NSPA lived experience network. Organisations may wish to join the NSPA and / or SASP.

Download the full findings report:

Download a snapshot of the report:

The Suicide Prevention Consortium, now concluded, was part of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

For queries, contact [email protected]

The quotes shown above are verbatim from chat boxes or transcripts, except for standardisation of spelling, removal of ‘filler’ words, and deletions for length (indicated with …)

We're also grateful to former member, WithYou, for their contribution to the earlier work of the Consortium.