NCISH

Reducing suicides: Quality improvement and patient safety

We are working with experts in Quality Improvement at the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) to support Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs) to strengthen their local suicide prevention quality improvement plans. This is part of a nationally recognised suicide reduction priority across Department of Health, NHS England, and an overall Mental Health Five Year Forward View recommendation to reduce the suicide rate by 10% by 2020/21.

Together with NCCMH, we are working with Quality Improvement teams in each STP to:

• review their services against established guidelines and recommendations, and improve the quality of care they offer, using bespoke data provided from the NCISH database, benchmarked against the national average;
• provide expert knowledge of suicide prevention in three priority areas – mental health secondary care, services for self-harm, and middle-aged men;
• identify and help STPs adopt and embed national evidence including NCISH “10 ways to improve patient safety” into local quality improvement plans;
• advise on local data collection and suicide prevention plans.

The study is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP).

In May 2019, NCISH were winners of a 2019 Making a Difference award for social responsibility.

Click here for a video explaining our work on suicide prevention.

Read our March 2020 update on the national suicide prevention programme in this blog, by NCISH researchers Nicola Richards and Cathryn Rodway.

Read a blog on our work with NCCMH to help local areas improve suicide prevention plans, by the NCISH project manager, Dr Pauline Turnbull.

Download a summary of how we help local areas improve suicide prevention plans.

National academic response to COVID-19 related suicide prevention

We have extended our national suicide prevention support role to include responding to local area’s concerns specific to the pandemic. Read more about our work here. 

Read a blog on NCISH’s contribution to suicide prevention during COVID-19, by NCISH researcher Nicola Richards.

Suicide by middle-aged men

Middle-aged men have the highest suicide rate in the UK but are often not in contact with services. This study will combine multiple sources of information to examine factors related to suicide in this hard-to-reach group, including barriers to accessing services. More specifically, the objectives of the study are:

• to examine the characteristics of middle-aged men who die by suicide;
• to determine how frequently suicide is preceded by factors that are more often associated with suicide by men than by women (e.g. masculinities, socio-economic position, social disconnectedness, reluctance to seek help for both mental and physical health);
• to examine the role of support services;
• to make recommendations to strengthen suicide prevention for middle-aged men.

The study is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and a report will be published in 2021.

Current collaborations and associated projects

We work collaboratively with national and international academic and health colleagues in the area of suicide prevention research. Our ongoing projects are listed below.