National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group minutes: February 2025

Attendees and apologies

Members

• Prof Christine Goodall (Chair), Professor of Oral Surgery and Violence Reduction/Honorary Consultant Oral Surgeon, University of Glasgow
• Louise Hunter, Chief Executive, Who Cares? Scotland
• Dr Douglas Hutchison, Executive Director of Education, Glasgow City Council
• Peter Kelly, Director, Poverty Alliance
• Catherine McWilliam, Nation Director for Scotland, Institute of Directors
• Brendan Rooney*, Chief Executive, Healthy n Happy Community Development Trust
• Prof Andrea Williamson, Professor of General Practice and Inclusion Health, University of Glasgow

Apologies

• Dr Linda Findlay, Royal College of Psychiatrists Scotland

In Attendance

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

Agenda Items 2, 3 and 4

• Dan Farthing*, Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH), (Strategic Outcome Lead, Outcome 2)
• Phil Hand*, Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH), (Strategic Outcome Lead, Outcome 2)
• Shirley Windsor*, Public Health Scotland (Strategic Outcome Lead, Outcome 4)

Agenda Item 4

• Angela Davidson, Deputy Director Improving Mental Health & Wellbeing, Scottish Government
• Nicola Dickie, Director People Policy, COSLA
• Dr Robby Steel, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist, NHS Lothian

Secretariat

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

(* Attended online)

Items and actions

Welcome

Prof. Goodall (“the Chair”) welcomed everyone to the seventh meeting of the National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group (NSPAG) (“the Group”). The Group welcomed Nicola Dickie from COSLA who would be presenting on the mental wellbeing delivery plan ‘deep dive’ during agenda item four, but attending the entire meeting as an observer.

Apologies

Apologies were noted.

Minutes

The minutes from the Group’s meeting in December had been circulated for comment and any further comments should be sent to the Secretariat.

Update on NSPAG recommendations

Hilary Third provided an update on the progress with recommendations from the Group’s first annual report. 

Recommendation 1: Tackling Inequalities – Moving from Engagement to Action

Workshops took place in January 2025, in collaboration with Samaritans (the outcome lead for “whole of Government” work) to bring together a wide range of policy areas from the Scottish Government and COSLA that are closely linked to factors/inequalities that increase suicide risk. The workshops created a space for discussion, and to help policy leads to think about how they could take forward their actions in Annex A of Creating Hope Together, in practical ways that can have an impact. The Scottish Government and Samaritans will continue to work with each of the policy areas to support them to further develop and deliver meaningful actions which will maximise their role in suicide prevention. 

Recommendation 2: Urgent Improvement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

Recent statistics show continued improvement in CAMHS waiting lists, and more children were getting access to treatment within the target of 18 weeks. Further updates on this recommendation will be provided as statistics around CAMHS are produced. The Group is keen to understand more about the statistics and the policy team will share further information. Action 7.1

The update included information on other services for children and young people, and the group agreed it was important to consider the broader context and the role of other forms of support. More information on this will be shared at the next meeting, which will include a “deep dive” on children and young people. 

Recommendation 3: Costing Plans in Order to Prioritise Action Effectively

While the draft Scottish Budget for 2025-26 puts an emphasis on addressing factors, such as poverty and housing, which act as key determinants of mental health and suicide prevention, it was highlighted that it would be challenging to directly attribute the impact of budgets to suicide prevention outcomes.

It was reported that the Scottish Government are developing a Fairer Funding approach for the third sector, and a pilot programme had been set up to provide 2-year funding to some third sector organisations to provide more certainty and allow for longer-term planning and project management.

During discussion it was highlighted that it would be helpful to know the total amount invested to tackle inequalities across different policy areas, and how this contributes to suicide prevention work. There was some discussion about how the Group could describe the contribution of wider policy work and investment, to suicide prevention. 

There was a discussion around how the Group could input to the draft child poverty plan so consideration is given to where suicide prevention could meaningfully sit. Peter Kelly sits on the child poverty programme board and agreed to liaise with the policy team on this. Action 7.2

Update on Delivery of Creating Hope Together Action Plan

Haylis Smith led a short discussion on Outnav, Suicide Prevention Scotland’s reporting and monitoring tool, which is used to show progress in each of the four outcomes in the suicide prevention strategy. Outnav is hosted by Matter Of Focus. An example report on one of the outcomes had been included in the meeting papers.

It was reported that each Delivery Lead would upload updates for each piece of work they are involved in around suicide prevention and these would be collated into an outcome report to inform Suicide Prevention Scotland, and the Group’s, annual report. 

It was highlighted that a grading scale had been devised by Matter Of Focus, and layers of checks would be undertaken to ensure information and risk assessments were consistent across all Delivery Leads.

The Group agreed that this is a good visual tool to show progress made across each outcome and access information, but it would be helpful to have a session with Matter Of Focus to help the Group understand how to assess how much progress has been made across outcomes when drafting the next annual report. Action 7.3

Proposed 2025/26 delivery priorities (including delivering our sharper focus on inequalities)

Haylis Smith led a discussion on the 2025-26 Delivery Plan and sought the Group’s views on how they could take a deeper look at tackling inequalities, and how the Group could support the delivery of work in the coming year. Discussion points included:

• Members were impressed by the amount of cross Government engagement underway.
• Alongside any focus on risk assessment, there needs to be adequate consideration of safe and effective support and therapy.
• Support for people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage needs to be improved as often what is provided doesn’t meet the needs of people with chaotic lives.
• This is compounded by resourcing issues as staff don’t have time/knowledge to address all the issues an individual can present with, and they are often sent to different services and the third sector.
• The third sector is experiencing many challenges which have an impact on services, particularly in relation to funding.
• Economic crisis across sectors needs to be addressed as this leads to preventable deaths.

Deep Dive: SG and COSLA’s Mental Wellbeing Delivery Plan

Nicola Dickie and Angela Davidson delivered a presentation on the vision and priorities set out in the Scottish Government and COSLA’s Mental Wellbeing Delivery Plan, outlining key aspects of the policy landscape. They highlighted areas of progress, as well as areas in which work would continue to make a difference on the ground (slides attached). This was followed by a discussion with the Group.

Dr Steel give a view from mental health services, focussing on people who may be at higher risk of suicide/less able or likely to access support. He set out “four opportunities” for improving the way mental health services can support people who may be at risk of suicide. These are: 

1. Acknowledge that the unscheduled front door serves, not only patients in acute mental health crisis/relapse, but also people overwhelmed by acute distress/dysregulation. Ensure the staff and skills mix in unscheduled mental health teams reflects this. Furthermore, support this "front door" by providing a responsive and effective "back door" (supported signposting into appropriate daytime support).
2. Create a clinical standard around routine post-crisis follow-up. The NCISH recommendation is for a follow up within 72 hours of discharge  .
3. Create a clinical standard around the management of transitions between services (not just CAMHS-Adult transition) stipulating that the discharging/referring service retains clinical responsibility (including responsibility for checking up on the patient) until the patient has been seen by a clinician in the receiving service.
4. Create a clinical standard around oversight of discharges from the service - ideally all decisions to discharge a patient, including default discharges triggered by consecutive missed appointments, should be reviewed by a senior clinician and their active clinical decision to discharge should be documented.

There was a broad discussion on opportunities within mental health services and community supports to maximise impact on suicide prevention.

Any Other Business

Membership

The Chair reported that progress was being made with approaching potential new Members. This included representation from a range of sectors and expertise including mental health; emergency medicine; equalities; children and young people. The Group agreed that the following people be invited to join the Group: Becky Don-Kennedy (Equality Network), Zahra Hedges (Winning Scotland), Dr Cath Aspden (Emergency Department Consultant, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and member of the Emergency Medicine at the Deep End Group), and Dr Alastair Cook (NHS Lanarkshire). The Chair is exploring potential representation from people working with asylum seekers; and somebody from the justice sector. A further update will be given in due course.

Further discussion 

The Group was keen to understand more about the mental health system, and to get beneath the statistics, to understand ways in which suicide prevention can be maximised.

Within this, they are keen to understand different ways of delivering effective support in local partnership settings. Action 7.4

The Group is keen to offer robust challenge, and to ensure that its’ recommendations are well-informed and evidence-based.

There was limited time to consider ways of improving how the meetings work. Members are encouraged to share their thoughts with the Secretariat Action 7.5

There was insufficient time to take further comments and the Chair encouraged members to share with Secretariat team. 

The Chair thanked the Group for their contributions.