Kapur et al, 2025

In this Personal View, we summarise three recent national quality improvement programmes in England which focused on suicide prevention or self-harm.

1. A suicide prevention quality improvement programme
2. A community-based care for self-harm programme
3. A Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) indicator for psychosocial assessment following self-harm

For each programme, services used their own local data to address suicide and self-harm risks. Strong local leadership and the inclusion of and engagement with patients, carers, health and social care services, and the third sector were crucial elements for the programmes to be embedded. Aggregated national activity data on suicide and self-harm suggest there might have been some association between the programmes and positive outcomes in particular groups (such as young people and clinical populations including those who had self-harmed).

We conclude that quality improvement is one route through which we ensure that mental health services are as safe as they can be. Quality improvement approaches can also contribute to addressing the gap between research evidence and implementation.

Read the full paper

• Quality improvement for suicide prevention and self-harm intervention: addressing the implementation gap and saving lives (The Lancet Psychiatry)

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