Hansard

It is of particular importance to me personally that my first debate as Minister for Mental Health is on the subject of suicide prevention. This is a subject that I have spoken about on many occasions in the chamber. As I have said previously, suicide has touched my life. It is a bereavement like no other, and its effect on those who have lost loved ones is difficult to quantify.

For that reason, I want to take the opportunity of this debate during suicide prevention awareness week to signal a step change in suicide prevention in Scotland. Every life matters. In Scotland, no death by suicide should be regarded as either acceptable or inevitable. That is the radical conviction that underpins the Scottish Government’s new suicide prevention action plan, which we published last month. Every life does matter, and our vision, which is shared by our partners in mental health and suicide prevention, is of a Scotland where suicide is preventable and where help and support are available to anyone contemplating suicide and to those who have lost a loved one to suicide. Suicide prevention is everyone’s business.

In the past decade, Scotland has made real progress in addressing this hugely important issue. Between 2002 and 2006, and between 2013 and 2017, the rate of death by suicide in Scotland fell by 20 per cent. That reduction is testament to the dedication, expertise and hard work of all those who work to prevent suicides in our society—I include the national health service, social services, the third sector and Police Scotland, and of course many individuals, community groups and businesses.

In our engagement process to develop the action plan, in the Opposition debate on suicide and in feedback from the Health and Sport Committee, from our wide range of stakeholders and, above all, from the voices of those directly affected by suicide, it emerged loud and clear that, as a country, we have so much more to do to support people at risk of suicide and so help prevent avoidable deaths. Every life matters.

Our new action plan sets out the Scottish Government’s key strategic aims that we want to achieve, working with our partners across a range of sectors. It lists the actions that leaders at the national, regional and local levels must take to transform society’s response and attitudes to suicide. Crucially, those actions extend beyond health and social care. The approach that we have set out is a cross-government one that recognises the need for further collective action to prevent deaths by suicide.

The plan has been developed with partners, stakeholders and people who have been directly affected by suicide, and I am very grateful to all those who took the time to attend various meetings with me and with my predecessor, Maureen Watt, as well as the delegates who attended a series of public engagement events held earlier this year. The views expressed and the experiences that people shared have played a hugely important part in informing and shaping the content of the action plan.

I am also very grateful to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities for working closely with us in the development of the action plan, and I look forward to continued collaboration with COSLA in that work.

I am grateful, too, to members of this Parliament, including members of the Health and Sport Committee, whose carefully considered thoughts and contributions have been of great value in helping us to refine the final version of the suicide prevention action plan.

The scope of the new action plan reflects our shared determination to bring about a step change in suicide prevention in Scotland. Our vision is supported by key strategic aims for a Scotland in which people at risk of suicide feel able to ask for help and have access to skilled staff and well-co-ordinated support; people affected by suicide are not alone; suicide is no longer stigmatised; we provide better support to those bereaved by suicide; and, through learning and improvement, we minimise the risk of suicide by delivering better services and building stronger, more connected communities.

That will be evidenced by our target to further reduce suicides by 20 per cent by 2022 from a 2017 baseline. In 2013, the World Health Organization adopted a global target for a 10 per cent reduction by 2020. By setting a 20 per cent target, we commit to even greater ambition and a faster pace. The target is not to be seen as an end point, but as a marker on our journey of progress towards further reductions in suicide.

The vision that I have outlined includes a particular emphasis on ensuring not only that people at risk of suicide feel able to ask for help and have access to skilled staff and well-co-ordinated support, but that we provide better support to people who have been bereaved by suicide. I want to highlight those aspects because someone dying by suicide has a massive and long-lasting impact on the family, friends and communities who are left behind.

Therefore, it is important that our action plan sets out a range of actions that are designed to continue the strong, long-term trend of the reduction of the suicide rate in Scotland. Actions include developing refreshed mental health and suicide prevention training; developing a co-ordinated approach to maximising the impact of public awareness campaigns; ensuring that timely and effective support is available around Scotland for those affected by suicide; improving the use of data, evidence and guidance on suicide prevention to maximise impact; and reviewing all deaths by suicide so that we can learn from those tragedies and use the learning to help prevent further deaths.