Hansard

Like many other members, I find it difficult to imagine what drives people to suicide or, indeed, the anguish of family members who are faced with the suicide of a loved one. Therefore, I welcome the debate, because we are taking those issues seriously.

I also welcome the impact of the choose life strategy, which was published back in 2002. Although it is disappointing that the targets have not been fully met and, as Willie Coffey told us, our suicide levels are still much higher than other European levels, we must take heart that movement is in the right direction. Therefore, I welcome the new strategy that follows on from choose life and hope that it will have similar impacts on the number of suicides in Scotland.

Many members spoke about issues that are pertinent to the debate, but one of the more important ones is the one about which Kevin Stewart talked at length: the stigma that is connected with mental health issues. That stigma still exists, despite numerous campaigns in the area. How can we encourage people who are desperate and need help to seek and receive that help if we do not remove that stigma? It is really important that we do that. Kenny Gibson also mentioned the work of the NUJ in reporting suicide, which is helpful in that regard.

Many members spoke about groups that are involved in helping people. I also pay tribute to them: the breathing space service, SAMH, the choose life campaign, Touched by Suicide Scotland and, of course, the Samaritans, which is one of the groups that everyone thinks about when we talk about suicide. They provide a lifeline for those who are suicidal, and they work round the clock to be there to listen to people. Many of those groups also work outside the statutory services, which makes them much more approachable when we consider stigma and the fear that it puts into people about approaching mental health services.

Neil Findlay mentioned the Samaritans report “Men and Suicide”. Perhaps we have missed the point that gender stereotypes put men at greater risk of suicide; they put greater pressure on men to cope, to be strong and to provide leadership. As James Dornan said, there is an onus on men to have “achieved”, by a certain time in their lives. They perhaps compare themselves with their peers and find themselves wanting.

Men also have difficulty discussing their emotions. Women are much better at discussing emotions and reaching out for help. In men, the gender stereotype says that that is weakness, which builds barriers for people to seeking help from their peers and loved ones.

We heard from Neil Findlay and other speakers about the incidence of suicide being much higher in areas of deprivation. That should not be surprising, because living in areas of deprivation where there is no hope of improvement must eventually grind people down to a point at which they see no point in going on.

Jim Hume made a really good point when he talked about suicide and “Equally Well”. We need to consider the issue as part of health inequalities. Health inequalities takes in many health issues, and suicide is one of them, which is relevant when we are considering financial pressures and the like.

We also need to look at other groups of people. I think that it was Nanette Milne who talked about the predominance of males in agriculture. Farmers and farm workers are a group of people who perhaps do not have a lot of social interaction, because they work in rural areas where they do not meet people. It is important that we reach out to them.

Graeme Pearson talked about signposting help for men at male-dominated events, such as sporting events. That is really important, but it is also important that we encourage people to speak about the issues.

Another important group is young people. We all know about the issues of transition in mental health services when people move from children’s services to adult services. That is a difficult time and we need to ensure that the services are in place to help them through that. There are added pressures on young people; young people have always been under pressure, but as things move on, especially with regard to social media and the like, the pressures change. Yesterday, YoungMinds published research about the pressures that young people feel they are facing. Half of them said that they felt that they had been bullied, which is a frightening amount. Part of that bullying is, of course, being done through new social media. Christine Grahame talked about the difficulty that that causes and suggested that there is a need for education in that area. I say that we need to take that a step further and hold to account the platforms that publish the material. If we were to do that, there would be a greater chance that those platforms would police their pages to ensure that people do not come under pressure from the bullies. That is something that we might need to look at in the future.

Other members talked about substance abuse being a trigger for suicide. That should not surprise us at all. Obviously, those who self-medicate by turning to alcohol and drugs for help are already suffering poor mental health. It therefore follows that they are at risk, so we need to think about ways of helping them through that, and of targeting that group.

Graeme Pearson talked about the impact of suicide on families, and the guilt that they feel about whether they could have done something or intervened. Families are hugely important in this issue. Recently, I attended a meeting of the cross-party group on carers, at which families of people with mental health problems talked about how they had been treated by psychiatric services. Patients had been told not to confide in their families and families were not given advice on how to support family members who were coming out of hospital and were suffering mental health issues. They had not been told that people coming out of in-patient services are at a greater risk of suicide, so they were ill prepared to help them. Patient confidentiality must of course be paramount, but it is not helpful if we end up stopping people reaching out to those who are best equipped to help them, and if we are not providing those families with the knowledge and understanding of what they can do to help.

In its briefing for today’s debate, SAMH talked about the community support networks that it is putting in place to provide support and information for people who are suicidal. That is a step in the right direction. It also talked about community engagement, and many people have spoken about training for people in work situations in which they might meet people who are thinking about suicide. However, I think that we should look at suicide prevention from a community point of view, so that we can address the training needs throughout our whole society, because we do not know when people might meet someone who is thinking about suicide.

On the subject of social media platforms, I read a story about someone who had tried to commit suicide and was trying to find the person who had intervened. That person was not a policeman or a health worker; it was just someone who had been walking past and who had stopped to speak to the person and persuade them not to take their own life, and had then gone on about their business. Obviously, at such a time of great distress, the person did not think of taking the other person’s contact details, but they now want to track that person down to thank them for changing their life by convincing them not to commit suicide.

I also welcome the fact that a self-harm strategy will be published. That is important because many of those who commit suicide have also self-harmed. A strategy will help to identify those who might commit suicide.

I will touch briefly on the interventions that are available when someone is attempting to commit suicide or is suffering a mental breakdown. The emergency service that tends to respond is the police, which is perhaps not the best service for someone who is in a difficult place. We need to put in place services that reduce the stigma, and which deal with people quickly—it is an area in which there should be no waiting lists—and with compassion.

One suicide is one too many. It is hard to imagine the despair that outweighs a person’s natural instinct to prolong their life and leads them to take their life and ignore the impact that it will have on their family and on the person who finds them. Although we wish that suicide was not a problem and that we were not debating it, we must do everything possible to support and reach out to those who are at risk.