National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group minutes: August 2025

Attendees and apologies

Members

• Prof Christine Goodall (Chair), Professor of Oral Surgery and Violence Reduction/Honorary Consultant Oral Surgeon, University of Glasgow
• Cath Aspden, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
• Alastair Cook, NHS Lanarkshire
• Derek Cree, Police Scotland
• Becky Don-Kennedy*, Equality Network
• Louise Hunter, Chief Executive, Who Cares? Scotland
• Zahra Hedges, Winning Scotland
• Dr Douglas Hutchison, Executive Director of Education, Glasgow City Council
• Annika Joy, Simon Community Scotland
• Brendan Rooney, Chief Executive, Healthy n Happy Community Development Trust
• Prof Andrea Williamson, Professor of General Practice and Inclusion Health, University of Glasgow

Apologies

• Peter Kelly, Director, Poverty Alliance
• Catherine McWilliam, Nation Director for Scotland, Institute of Directors

In Attendance

• Prof Rory O’Connor, Chair of Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Academic Advisory Group (AAG)
• Haylis Smith, Suicide Prevention National Delivery Lead
• Melanie Wade, Police Scotland

Agenda Item 2

• Aileen Blower, CAMHS Psychiatry Adviser Scottish Government (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
• Cara Cooper, Scottish Government

AOB

• Morag Williamson*, Scottish Government
• Julie Anderson*, Scottish Government

Secretariat

• Hilary Third, Scottish Government
• Craig Wilson, Scottish Government 

(* Attended online)

Items and actions

Welcome

Prof. Goodall (“the Chair”) welcomed everyone to the tenth meeting of the National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group (NSPAG) (“the Group”). 

Membership Updates

The Group welcomed new members Annika Joy, Simon Community Scotland and Chief Superintendent Derek Cree, Police Scotland.

Annika will bring insights into the experiences of people experiencing homelessness, often alongside other serious disadvantage and will help the Group consider how the work on tackling inequality of suicide can be strengthened. 

It was reported that Chief Superintendent Matt Paden had recently retired from Police Scotland and would be replaced by Chief Superintendent Derek Cree. Superintendent Melanie Wade accompanied Derek as an observer.

Apologies

Apologies were noted.

Minutes

There were no minutes from the previous meeting as it was dedicated to a learning session and a private discussion around the Group’s annual report.

Updates

Annual Report

It was reported that the Creating Hope Together Year 2 report and the 2025/26 delivery plan were published in August.

Action Plan

Scottish Government and COSLA will host a session on 1 September to develop the second Creating Hope Together action plan, due to be published in January 2026. The Group’s forthcoming annual report will feed into the next action plan. The Group are invited to attend the session and meet the wider suicide prevention delivery collective and local suicide prevention leads.

Evaluation of Suicide Prevention Scotland’s Delivery Model  

As we near the end of the initial three-year action plan, work is ongoing to arrange an independent evaluation of Suicide Prevention Scotland’s delivery model to assess the effectiveness of the delivery collective and also learn from how this approach is working. This would also consider role of the Group.

Suicide Prevention Week

The Baton Of Hope will be passing through West Lothian on 5 September. Tom Arthur MSP, Minister for Social Care And Mental Wellbeing, and Cllr Kelly, COSLA Health and Social Care Spokesperson, will meet with the organisers when it begins its journey from Linlithgow Palace.

The second Side By Side After Suicide event will take place on 6 September in Edinburgh. This event will bring together people who have been bereaved by suicide. The Baton Of Hope organisers will also attend.

A new podcast series will launch on Suicide Prevention Day, 10 September, followed by new episodes every week. The podcast will be hosted by Amy Irons, a BBC journalist with lived experience of bereavement by suicide.

NRS Probable Suicide Statistics

The statistics on probable deaths by suicide in 2024 will be published on 16 September. Mr Arthur and Cllr Kelly will mark this with a visit to NHS Tayside to see local work. There was a discussion around pre-release access to the statistics. It was highlighted that this is restricted to a small group of Scottish Government officials and can’t be shared any further before publication. It was noted that this gives the Suicide Prevention Scotland comms team little time to respond via a news release on the day of publication. It was suggested that this issue is mentioned in the Group’s annual report to highlight this, and that other key groups such as the Academic Advisory Group, don’t get pre-release access.

CAMHS

The Group were offered the opportunity to take part in a session on CAMHS. This would be led by a professional advisor from the Mental Health Directorate and a Scottish Government lead on stats. The Group indicated that they would find this helpful. ACTION

Deep Dive: Children & young people’s mental health with a specific focus on those who are care experienced

The Group took part in a session to discuss and provide advice on how we can maximise opportunities for preventing suicide amongst children and young people, including those who are care experienced.

The Group were joined by Aileen Blower, Professional Adviser, Children, Young People, Relationships and Families, Scottish Government, and Cara Cooper, Unit Head, Care Experience and Whole Family Wellbeing, Scottish Government.

Louise Hunter opened the session by sharing an overview of findings from a Who Cares? Scotland report published in February 2022. This was informed by children and young people and care experienced adults’ experiences of accessing services. It highlighted the additional challenges faced by people with care experience, including stigma, and barriers to accessing support. It also found that seven out of ten care experienced children and young people said they had been unable to access mental health support, and suggested they were more likely to speak to peers rather than services. It was highlighted that there is a lack of comprehensive data about suicidality amongst care experienced children and young people – though we do know there is a higher risk of suicide amongst this group - and that it is important to share knowledge and data across organisations. 

Aileen then led a discussion on the Scottish approach for supporting children and young people in crisis. This framework is currently in development and aims to improve access to services for children and young people in crisis, on a consistent basis, across the country. The aim of the framework is to ensure a better response, wherever someone presents in crisis, and that there is a clear path to statutory services, where needed. It seeks to ensure that services are effective, responsive and accessible. The framework considers key transition points, and different types of distress. Aileen welcomed input from the group to the framework, which will be completed this year.

Cara then spoke about the challenges and opportunities to prevent suicide amongst care experienced children and young people. She highlighted that care experienced children and young people may have experienced abuse, neglect, loss and complex trauma; that placement moves (sometimes out of area), and changes in worker can be very difficult, and that fragmented services, and a lack of consistent access to mental health support are significant issues. She also spoke about reluctance to seek help, and fear of being judged. She then spoke about opportunities for better and stronger connectivity between policies and services, ensuring they are trauma informed, for more peer support and youth-led support, with clearer pathways to clinical support, where appropriate. She also spoke about the importance of GIRFEC as an approach for delivering the multi-disciplinary, holistic, values-based support to all children and young people, including those who are looked after.

She highlighted the work of the National Hub for Reviewing and Learning from the Deaths of Children and Young People led by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate. It was reported that reviews are conducted into the deaths of formally looked after children up to their 18th birthday, and up to the 26th birthday for care leavers. Cara shared the following reports with the Group:

National Hub background and reporting – Healthcare Improvement Scotland

Learning reviews for children and adults in Scotland Summary report 2025_Aug 2025.pdf

There was a discussion around data, noting that it is collected in different ways and comes from different places. It was also noted that Public Health Scotland’s work for Outcome 4 of the suicide prevention strategy would help to identify gaps.

The Group were asked to consider four key questions for discussion:

1. In the context of supporting children and young people’s mental health and preventing suicides, how much and how well do we align our national and local policies, partnerships and priorities to create the conditions for young people to thrive in their communities, balanced with specialist provisions required to support their overall wellbeing?

2. What are the most significant opportunities/priorities for improving our support to children and young people at highest risk of suicide, including those who are care experienced (or on the edges of care)? Whilst recognising current pressures across the public and third sectors, how can we ensure that our aspiration to focus on tackling the inequalities of suicide and supporting those at greatest risk delivers for care experienced children and young people? What’s the particular role that Suicide Prevention Scotland could play in this?

Discussion points on questions 1 and 2 included:

• The need to consider the impact of substance abuse on young people’s mental health and the risk of it leading to criminal exploitation.
• The work to address the prevalence of cannabis use, and how this can be used to manage emotions but is not given sufficient attention as a factor in mental health/suicidality. 
• Zahra undertook to share data on substance use and suicidal ideation with Aileen, based on a survey of 10,000 young people, which can be analysed at national level as well as by school and local authority. ACTION
• The importance of evidence and the need for improved data. It would be helpful to know what datasets are available and who has access to them. It would be useful to take a deeper look into reports and try to pull out data on suicide attempts (as well as completed suicides), and build this into future data collection. Derek highlighted that there are lots of crossovers with police work and he undertook to explore what data Police Scotland hold and how to share it. Action
• There was also some discussion about how far ScotSID, and the QES system (for suicide reviews) can help improve data on care experience and suicide. 
• Care experienced people are more exposed to extreme/severe stress which will impact significantly on mental health, and on suicidality. The framework needs to capture this.
• The relevance of ethnicity was raised, as this can be an additional barrier. 
• The needs of unaccompanied children seeking asylum should also be referenced in the framework. 
• Early experiences influence how people view services throughout life, and support is inconsistent across the country.
• Importance of thinking about ways of supporting and building capacity in children so they can manage better, and to avoid getting into crisis. Requires more upstream intervention, creating the conditions for young people to thrive in their communities. 
• There is a need to focus more on outcomes rather than process, the MH Quality Indicators can help with this. 
• Importance of thinking about marginalised communities (including LGBTI) and how wider policies and services take into consideration the extreme pressures on those groups. Cara and Becky will pick up separately. ACTION
• Haylis spoke about how Suicide Prevention Scotland is working with some specific marginalised groups, as part of wider work to sharpen its focus on tackling the inequalities of suicide. This will help deepen our understanding of the impact of stigma and discrimination on suicidality. It will also inform work Suicide Prevention Scotland is undertaking on risk management in clinical settings.

Due to time constraints, the Group were invited to submit responses to questions three and four by email. Action

3. How can the Crisis Framework support, elevate and enhance suicide prevention work (through Suicide Prevention Scotland and more broadly) around children and young people:

• In the way we discuss suicide in relation to factors such as reducing stigma and risk management (shared language)
• In how we collaborate with and promote specific activity in the next Suicide Prevention Action Plan? 

4. What are the reasonable expectations of what can be achieved to support children and young adults to manage crisis and what factors compel 'escalation' to NHS services?

NSPAG Report

The Group took part in a closed session to discuss and finalise their second annual report which will be published in September 2025.

AOB

Staff changes – policy team

It was reported that the Scottish Government’s Mental Health Directorate has been undergoing a restructure and the Suicide Prevention policy team will merge with the Wellbeing and Prevention team to form a new unit that will look at work around social determinants. Morag Williamson would be stepping down as unit head of the Suicide Prevention team to take up a new role within mental health and Julie Anderson would be heading up the new unit. Morag and Julie joined this section of the meeting to make introductions. The Group thanked Morag for her contribution to the suicide prevention work over the years.

Next meeting

The policy team would invite Tom Arthur MSP, Minister for Social Care And Mental Wellbeing, and Cllr Paul Kelly, COSLA Health and Social Care Spokesperson to attend the Group’s meeting in November.