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Suicide Prevention Annual Review and Plan Published

National figures published by the Office of National Statistics in September 2020 show that Yorkshire and the Humber region had the highest suicide rate in England at 12 suicides per 100,000 population over a three year period between 2017 and 2019. In West Yorkshire and Harrogate, there has been an increase from 10.6 per 100,000 between 2016-18 to 11.88 between 2017 and 2019.  

The Partnership has been working hard to reduce suicide and the devastating impact on families, carers and friends across West Yorkshire and Harrogate since 2016/17 and has stated its aims in the Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Five Year Plan. The plan sets out how we will work together to reduce suicide by 10% across the West Yorkshire and Harrogate area, and by 75% in targeted areas.

In support of this work, our West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership Suicide Prevention Advisory Network (SPAN) Annual Review 2019-2020 and Annual Plan 2020-2021 is now available. This report provides a review of the previous year’s developments (2019/2020) and outlines our proposed work plan for the coming year 2020/2021.

Dr Michael Doyle, Deputy Director of Nursing and Quality, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and lead for suicide prevention in the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership said: “We continue to make progress towards our aim of reducing suicide across the six places in our Partnership. We have outlined in our plan for this year how we will develop and support our projects, with funding in place that has allowed us to continue our successful programmes, such as the Suicide Bereavement Service Funding, and launch new ones such as Great Minds. “We have a number of other exciting projects underway and are looking forward to seeing those yield results, including an innovative research project with the University of Huddersfield on the use of artificial intelligence, or machine learning, to predict and prevent suicide by identifying people at risk so we can better target support.”

Zahida Mallard, Equality and Engagement Manager for South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and member of the Partnership’s BAME Network said: “Our work around suicide reduction continues to develop at pace as we look to work with our partners to reduce the tragic impact of every life lost. The annual review provides a good snapshot of our work to date, as well as outlining our plans for the future. We know the value of working with people to get this right, we will continue to listen to the views of those who have been affected by losing someone to suicide as well as our frontline professionals.”