Agenda item

Report of the Director of Community & Children’s Services.

The Sub Committee received a report of the Director of Community & Children’s Services providing a summary of the draft Suicide Prevention Action Plan. It was noted that, once the stand-alone Health & Social Care Scrutiny Committee was in place, documents like this would only be available for the Scrutiny Committee to review once they had been agreed by the relevant Grand Committee.

Officers reported that the action plan had been developed in collaboration with Clinical Commissioning Groups, the Samaritans, Metropolitan Police, and City of London Police, and would be considered by the Health and Wellbeing Board at their next meeting.

Members noted that the priority areas for action were:

·         To reduce the risk of suicide in key high risk groups (with a focus on young and middle-aged men);

·         Tailor approaches to improve mental health in specific groups (with a focus on people with untreated depression and children and young people);

·         Reduce access to the means of suicide;

·         Provide better information and support to those bereaved or affected by suicide;

·         Support the media in delivering approaches to suicide and suicidal behaviour;

·         Support research, data collection and monitoring.

Members queried ‘the Bridge Pilot’, and officers reported that this was a 6-month initiative to affix signage to London, Hungerford and Waterloo Bridges advertising a free-phone Samaritans number to dissuade people from jumping. Members noted that, although permission was still being sought from Lambeth and Westminster Councils to secure the signs for the latter two bridges, signposting people to where they could get support had been successful at Clifton Bridge, the London underground and ‘hot-spot’ car parks. Members discussed the report, and requested officers to write to the Health Scrutiny Committees of both Lambeth and Westminster Councils once the plan was finalised, to highlight this initiative with them and encourage support.

RESOLVED – That officers write to the Health Scrutiny Committees of both Lambeth and Westminster Councils once the plan was finalised to highlight the Bridge Pilot with them and encourage support.