Suicide rates are unacceptable. We need to do more

A message from CALM on the latest ONS stats.

In 2021, more people in England and Wales died by suicide than the year before. As a suicide prevention organisation, that’s something we never want to have to say.

The Office for National Statistics released suicide data for England and Wales. It shows that 6.9% more deaths by suicide were registered than in 2020 - returning to pre pandemic levels. With men accounting for 75% of all suicides, and worryingly females under 24 showing the biggest increase since records began. Each of the 5,583 deaths registered in 2021 represents a real person. A life with hopes and dreams and people that loved them. We need to do more as a society to prevent suicide.

And that message is more important than ever, slap bang in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Yesterday’s release reconfirms what organisations like CALM already know to be true. If we want these tragic numbers to decrease, real change is needed. Urgently.

There’s loads we as individuals can do to help our mates, family and colleagues, and even to change the culture that has historically made suicide so hard to talk about. But it takes more than that. We need dedicated government action that covers housing, education, health, money, and employment if we truly want to see change. Right now, not enough is being done.

Back in 2018 CALM campaigned to put suicide prevention on the national agenda by instating the world’s first Minister for Suicide Prevention. Sounds impressive, right? Right. Sadly, that’s pretty much as far as it went. 4 years and a global pandemic later, the post has been absorbed into the Minister of State for Care and Mental Health’s responsibilities and woefully ignored.

Wendy Robinson CALM’s head of services is clear that more needs to be done across society to make a meaningful reduction in the lives lost to suicide every week.

“We know the risk factors associated with suicide, so we need to be proactively taking actions to address them

“It's about all of us, as a society and as a country, being dedicated to making sure those risk factors are reduced - investing in education, welfare, affordable housing, and ensuring everyone has access to mental health support before they’re at crisis point.

“Yes, we need to talk more and connect with those around us, but more than anything we need strong leadership from the government to make a real difference. Suicide prevention should be high on the new prime minister’s agenda.”

But that isn’t happening. In 2021, around 8 million people in England struggling with their mental health did not qualify for the support they needed - leaving NHS services with no option but to directly signpost to charities like our own in order to bridge the gap. In 2021 alone the CALM helpline received 276,648 calls for help across a range of issues including financial stress, anxiety, addiction and relationships.

And in the face of rising everything, bills, food, petrol, energy, things are only going to get busier. We’ve already seen calls to our helpline about money increase by 25%, and that’s without any additional increases in the price of essentials. Something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now.

Wendy says: “The staff on our helpline save lives and stop suicide every day. But what we’re facing now is unprecedented. There’s almost no one this situation doesn’t affect. There needs to be more done to make sure this crisis doesn’t take lives through suicide. And that needs meaningful action across a whole host of places. First and foremost, making sure people aren’t falling into poverty and homelessness, but more than that, protecting jobs, making sure there’s education and welfare.”

The cost of living crisis will disproportionately affect poorer households. We know that men in the most disadvantaged areas of the UK are up to 10 times more likely to take their own lives than those in affluent areas, which is why we need action now.

Dr Jay Watts, consultant clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, who echoed our concerns.

“We know suicide rates are greater in deprived areas and that more people die by suicide when countries face a recession or drop in the standard of living. Combine this with our current benefits system, which so often makes claimants feel that worklessness equates with worthlessness, and we have a toxic mix.”

Alongside calling for more funding and provision from the government for the NHS, Dr Jay believes that a key part of suicide prevention in 2022 is community.

“We need to put suicide prevention right in the heart of our local communities and to normalise talking about death in general. In many other cultures, death is much more central and much more unavoidable. In the UK, we like to brush it under the carpet, which does us no good, making talking about and seeking help for suicidality much more difficult.

And that’s where CALM comes in. While we’re all facing some really difficult choices and situations, we can all have an individual impact through connection.

CALM CEO Simon Gunning believes that only through a combination of societal and individual change that true impact can be made to the tragic 6000 lives lost to suicide every year in the UK.

“Right now, it feels a little bit like a conveyor belt of crap. You’ve just got these things coming at you everyday. People are scared, people don’t know what to expect or how we’re going to cope. That’s where we need strong leadership, just like we had the furlough scheme in 2020 to lessen the impact of covid on people’s income. We need strong, decisive leadership to ensure people aren’t being dragged into poverty, because the consequences of that, as CALM knows, can be tragic.

“And alongside that leadership, we all need to be in this together. That’s one thing that came out so strongly for CALM during the pandemic, that power for us to come together.

“There’s some stuff we, as individuals, can’t control - the energy price cap, how much a litre of petrol sets you back, the price of a tin of beans, but what we can control is how we talk about the situation. When it comes to your home, food, bills, it’s all stuff that’s vital to your survival, so it’s natural to feel like you’re the only one struggling - even if we know that’s not true. Being honest about what you're facing makes it easier for others to share too.

“So really, while it’s on organisations like CALM to call on the government for the leadership that we so desperately need in this , on a personal level it’s about people being honest and normalising talking about money and what’s going on in our head.. And it’s only with the combination of those two approaches, societal and individual, that we’ll start to see that devastating 125 lives lost to suicide every week reducing.”

Effective suicide prevention isn’t only helping people when they’re at crisis point, it’s working across industries, political beliefs, cultures and communities to make support accessible and available, and working cross-organisationally to tackle well known risk factors to suicide prevention like poverty, homelessness and addiction. Only then can we truly be United Against Suicide.