Agenda item

To receive and consider the attached report of the Head of Scrutiny and Member Development

With reference to the previous agenda item (Minute 41 refers), the Board considered a specific report from the Head of Scrutiny and Member Development which related to one of the key recommendations identified in the Leeds Mental Health Needs Assessment; the requirement to undertake a suicide audit for the City.  Appended to the report was a copy of the audit for 2008-2010, for Members’ consideration.

Attending for this item to present the report and respond to the Board’s questions and comments were:

• Victoria Eaton (Consultant in Public Health) – NHS Airedale Bradford and Leeds
• Catherine Ward (Emotional Health and Wellbeing Lead) – NHS Airedale Bradford and Leeds
• Nigel Gray (Chief Officer Designate) – NHS Leeds North CCG
• Richard Wall (Head of Commissioning (Mental Health and Learning Disabilities)) – NHS Airedale, Bradford and Leeds

Councillor Mulherin, Executive Board Member for Health and Wellbeing – Leeds City Council was also in attendance.

The Chair stated that Councillors from the Armley Ward, who had raised some concerns around the levels of suicides in the LS12 area of the City, had been invited to attend the meeting, however apologies had been received due to unavoidable circumstances.

Members were informed that ,nationally, this issue was being given prominence, with a National Suicide Prevention Strategy being launched by the Government earlier in September 2012..

A summary of the key findings of the Leeds Suicide Audit were included in the report, with the headlines being given as:

• 179 recorded suicides in Leeds between 2008-2010;
• Suicide rates in Leeds were relatively static (compared to previous audits) and broadly comparable with national average and rates within Yorkshire and the Humber;
• the male/female suicide ratio was higher in Leeds, with a higher number of men taking their own lives;
• the majority of those people recorded in the audit were white, locally born men in the 30-50 age group;
• the risk factors driving people to take their own lives were mainly around social isolation; relationship problems; unemployment and debt, with higher incident rates in deprived areas;
• the majority of people taking their own lives had not been in touch with specialist mental health services before committing suicide but had been in touch with primary care services, although not necessarily in connection with a mental health issue.

Councillor Mulherin stated there was a need to target work around white males and also in the LS12 area which had been identified in the audit as seeing the highest incidences of residents taking their own lives, with 21 of the 179 people (approximately 12%) having an LS12 postcode.

Other areas of importance highlighted by Councillor Mulherin were:

• building up resistance at an early stage and the need to work with school clusters and individual schools;
• the specific risk group in the city of white men aged 30-50 and the need to consider how to engage with this group possibly through non-traditional means;
• the need to tackle the stigma and discrimination which can surround mental health problems and the positive example set by Leeds City Council, which had signed up to the Mindful Employer scheme;
• the need to make it easier for people to discuss mental health issues and to encourage better peer support.

Councillor Mulherin also referred to survivor-led crisis support and the lack of sufficient out of hours mental health services which she considered might be useful for the Board to explore further.  Councillor Mulherin specifically commended the work of Dial House in Leeds which provided this type of support in a safe, non-clinical setting for people in crisis, suggesting that looking at services for people outside the hospital environment could also be considered.

In brief summary the main areas of discussion were:

• the importance of flagging up patients in the higher risk groups (identified in the audit) who presented regularly at GP surgeries, but not necessarily with mental health issues and to carry this through to those presenting at A&E, as regular attendees, especially where no physical illness could be ascertained;
• the limitations of the data and the difficulty in assessing the exact number of suicides due to how deaths were recorded.  However it was noted that as part of the Leeds audit, open verdicts and verdicts of misadventure had also considered;
• ways of engaging large numbers of people to disseminate information about mental health issues;
• the role of the Samaritans and the need for appropriate support to be available to those who were bereaved through suicide;
• the lack of improvement in the suicide figures for the city and whether this indicated that previous action plans had not been effective;
• the need for evidence-based interventions to form the basis of identified actions/ recommendations;
• the need for appropriate specialist support to be given to military personnel returning from the front line experiencing mental health problems;
• access to means to commit suicide was not identified as a significant risk factor.

Nigel Gray highlighted that despite some gaps in the available data around the specific circumstances associated with each suicide, the audit had provided valuable information which would be shared with GPs to enable better preventative work to be established.  This could then be measured for its effectiveness.

RESOLVED – To note the information around the Leeds Suicide Audit (2008-2010) and that the Board consider a further report that includes specific details / data around:

·  Survivor Led Treatment / provision;

·  Current out of hours provision for mental health services;

·  The level of Out of Area treatments for mental health services users across Leeds.