Mental health: PfG delivery plan

Making Suicide Prevention Everybody's Business

Actions
We will create and implement refreshed mental health and suicide prevention training by May 2019 for Scotland's public and private sectors.

We will develop reviews of all deaths by suicide and act on them.

We will develop innovative ways to use digital technology to prevent suicide.

Our commitments on suicide prevention are a critical part of our delivery of mental health reform. Every Life Matters was published in August 2018 – it is the Action Plan through which Scottish Government, working in partnership, aims to build on progress already made to prevent suicide. It is the product of extensive engagement, and gives all of us – individuals, communities, public, third and private sectors – important roles to play in preventing suicide.

Through the Plan, a National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group has been established under the chair of former Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick. This has brought together a range of partners including those affected by suicide, mental health experts and representatives from statutory and third sector organisations. The Leadership Group met for the first time in September and has worked together to develop a delivery plan. This will realise the vision of a Scotland where suicide is preventable, and where help and support is available to anyone contemplating suicide and to those who have lost a loved one to suicide.

Every Life Matters commits to an ambitious target to reduce the rate of suicide by a further 20% by 2022 (from a 2017 baseline). This goes beyond the global target set by the World Health Organization in 2013, building on the reductions in suicide that Scotland has already seen. The Leadership Group will set out its plans for delivery shortly. This work is backed by Scottish Government funding of £3 million over the course of the Parliament.