Creating Hope Together: Year 2 Annual Report

Responding to recommendations

During 2024, the National Suicide Prevention Advisory group (NSPAG) produced their annual report which reflected their views on progress of delivery of CHT. NSPAG set out three recommendations for Scottish Government, COSLA and Suicide Prevention Scotland. In addition, the Scottish Parliament Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee (EHRCJC) ran an inquiry into the suicide prevention strategy. This inquiry produced a set of ten recommendations. A summary of these recommendations is set out below:

NSPAG recommendations:

1. Suicide Prevention Scotland should use the tackling inequalities prioritisation framework to move from engagement to testing and delivering measurable action with specific groups and communities most at risk of suicide as early as possible in 2024/25
2. Scottish Government urgently focus attention and resourcing on improvement in the capacity and performance of Scotland's Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to reduce the risk of and prevent suicide among children and young people
3. Suicide Prevention Scotland should develop and introduce a process for costing implementation plans under the suicide prevention strategy which should inform resources allocated by Scottish Government and COSLA and the prioritisation of actions

EHRCJC recommendations:

1. Provide sufficient resources to tackle inequalities and ensure cross government working is in place
2. Address stigma and the impact of isolation particularly in rural areas and provide resources for the prevention of health harming behaviours. Improve the longer-term support for vulnerable people on discharge from health care settings or prison
3. Increase training for prison staff to respond adequately to people in distress
4. Improve tailored measures to address the unique needs and risk factors of vulnerable groups. Scottish Government should commit to a sustainable funding model to ensure organisations have the necessary resources to continue their support services
5. Ensure there is a breadth and diversity of lived experience and provide guidance to local areas on how to involve people with lived experience in their work
6. Scottish Government should commit to a more sustainable funding model to enable organisations to plan effectively
7. Tracking of spend against the annual delivery plan should be publicly available
8. Scottish Government should long term funding for community link workers and the wellbeing service for healthcare professionals
9. Ensure DBI is available to anyone who needs it
10. Improve cohesiveness to the collection of healthcare data particularly in primary care

Our response

Suicide Prevention Scotland has taken action to address the recommendations which relate to delivery of the CHT action plan. This has included:

• Addressing inequalities through the work set out in the key achievements section.
• Working to develop an approach to costing the implementation plans and including a transparent breakdown of funding allocated and spent across the delivery plan.
• Building our cross-government approach with policy teams within Scottish Government, COSLA and connecting local Suicide Prevention Leads with the local leads who have responsibility for topics such as Gender Based Violence, The Promise and Trauma Informed Practice.
• Addressing stigma through:
• Development of a stigma framework to guide action and awareness raising
• Utilising See Me's engagement with marginalised communities to inform campaigns and e-learning modules
• Working with organisations representing communities who face stigma and discrimination to ensure their views help shape our work
• Development of a briefing on suicide and gambling.
• Providing support to local Suicide Prevention Leads through our Suicide Prevention Implementation Leads based within PHS.
• Supporting Scottish Prison Service to review their suicide prevention strategy and process for supporting people in distress.
• Recruitment to the Lived and Living Experience Panel and Youth Advisory Group has attempted to ensure a breadth of diversity on the groups. Members on these groups come from rural, island and urban communities, there is diversity of gender and experience with representatives from LGBTQ+ communities, people who are neurodiverse and people who are care experienced. In addition, we have built strong relationships with organisations who work with people who experience inequalities, stigma and discrimination. These organisations have provided valuable input into key areas of our action plan particularly on implementation of recommendations for mental health services and Time Space Compassion in primary care and unscheduled care settings.
• The annual report for 2023/24 and the year 2 delivery plan set out funding commitments to deliver the action plan. This information can also be found in the appendices of this annual report.
• Working with the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) central team and the Scottish Government policy team to build accessibility of DBI.
• PHS are working to enhance the data available on suicide deaths and linking this to other existing PHS datasets.

We will continue to build on this activity as we move into year 3 delivery and are keen to continue working with NSPAG members to ensure our action on inequalities is being targeted in the way they feel will provide greatest impact.