New suicide prevention minister: what’s on her to-do list?

Theresa May has appointed what is believed to be the world’s first ever minister for suicide prevention as the Government hosts the inaugural Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit in London.

Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price is taking on the new brief. The Government “has also promised more support in schools, bringing in new mental health support teams and offering help in measuring students’ health, including their mental well-being”, says the BBC.

Announcing the suicide prevention push, the prime minister said: “We can end the stigma that has forced too many to suffer in silence and prevent the tragedy of suicide taking too many lives.”

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May also pledged £1.8m to the Samaritans, to ensure the charity can continue providing its free helpline for the next four years.

The move comes “amid concerns over a national scandal in suicide rates among teenagers, which rose by 67% between 2010 and 2017”, reports The Independent.

A total of more than 4,500 self-inflicted deaths are recorded every year in England, and suicide remains the leading cause of death among men under the age of 45.

Doyle-Price will be tasked with making sure that “every local area has effective plans in place to stop unnecessary deaths, and investigating how technology can help identify those most at risk”, says The Guardian.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the appointment would also help to put support for mental illness services on a parity with that for physical health treatment.

“There is a long road to travel to get there. This is not something you solve overnight,” added Hancock, who is hosting ministers from more 50 countries at the summit today.

A recent report by the National Audit Office found that even if current plans to spend an extra £1.4bn on mental health were delivered, there would be “significant unmet need” as a result of lack of staffing, poor data and a lack of spending controls on NHS clinical commissioning groups.

Hancock said the report showed that service provision was “still way off where we need to be” but that improvements had been made.

“The truth is that, for an awfully long time, mental health has simply not had the same level of support - both in terms of resources, but also in terms of how we as a society talk about it - compared to physical health, and we want to change that,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Louis Appleby, a professor at Manchester University and one of the country’s leading experts on suicide, told the BBC that having a minister for suicide prevention would “open doors” and make it easier to talk about the issue.

However, Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner, called for the Government’s pledges to be “matched by proper funding and more ambitious delivery”.

Doyle-Price also faces a potential backlash after it emerged that she had joked about “jumping off Beachy Head” rather than joining UKIP. The comment, made to a local newspaper four years ago, referred to the chalk headland in East Sussex, where around 20 people commit suicide each year. One Downing Street source said No 10 had not been aware of the remarks.