All public sector partners in Salford are working together to address the devastating impact that suicide has on families and communities and ensure that suicide should always be considered an avoidable occurrence.
We know that Salford has a number of high risk groups (which mirror some of the nationally identified high risk groups) who may have a greater risk of suicide. These groups include:
It is important to note that not everyone who considers suicide has a mental health problem.
In our strategy, we have six key objectives to achieve this vision:
You can read more about our strategy and action plan in the documents below:
The Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership met at the beginning of January. The meeting talked about the following issues:
The suicide prevention action plan is updated regularly by all the members of the partnership. The most up-to-date version is available here
Adele Owen has joined the Greater Manchester Health & Social Partnership as the Greater Manchester Suicide Prevention Programme Manager.
In Spring Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership will be starting work on a Greater Manchester wide Suicide Prevention audit.
The CCGs Communications and Engagement team have been running a suicide prevention campaign on social media over the Christmas period. The campaign will continue until the end of January 2019. The campaign has focused on increased anxiety, stress, money worries, debt advice and loneliness.
Every year, Salford Public Health carries out an audit of the number of deaths by suicide in the area. This helps us to understand how we can help to support people as early as possible and prevent people from considering suicide.
Salford Public Health shared the ‘Salford 2017 Annual Suicide Audit’ report with the group. At the meeting Salford Public Health presented the headlines and recommendations from the audit. It was agreed that the group would review the audit and recommendations and provide any comments back to Salford Public Health.
The recommendations from the audit will be reviewed alongside Salford’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan and any new actions that have identified as part of the audit will be added to the action plan.
The group had a discussion about the methods people might use to die by suicide based on information from the Suicide Prevention Audit. The group talked about how they could help prevent people from accessing these methods or, where this is not possible direct the person to help and support available.
Ideas discussed included free suicide awareness training for people that work in housing and in shops.
A Terms of Reference will be developed for Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership. A Terms of Reference will describe what the group is about and will explain the roles and responsibilities of the people that attend the meeting.
The Terms of Reference will be shared on the website once it is complete.
A Data Sharing Agreement will also be developed for Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership. A Data Sharing Agreement will clearly explain what the group’s roles and responsibilities are in relation to any data that is being shared in the meeting.
Our next Suicide Prevention Partnership will be in April 2019 and we will look to provide another update following this meeting. To be added to the email network for additional information, please contact: lauren.smith34@nhs.net
The Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership met at the beginning of August. The meeting talked about the following issues
Salford Suicide Prevention Action Plan
Suicide Prevention Resource
A business card sized information card has been developed to support people to manage thoughts of suicide. This has been developed by local people who have survived suicide, been bereaved by suicide or who are working on suicide prevention. The card will be tested out in two areas of Salford between August and October. Learning from this testing will help us to plan how we use the card in the future.
Blue Light Training (Mind in Salford)
This programme is being delivered by the Greater Manchester Mind organisations. They are working with the Resilience Hub to offer support to people working in blue light services (Greater Manchester Police, North West Ambulance Service, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue) around mental health and trauma. The approach offers training for managers and staff around mental health awareness and support for all staff and volunteers. Support includes group or 1:1 sessions, based on talking therapies or resilience building.
Mind have also developed a new app for mobile phones which they are testing with a small group of officers from Greater Manchester Police. The app uses bite-sized interventions, mindfulness and self-care techniques
Offload Programme (Salford Red Devils)
The Offload programme is a mental fitness programme for men, delivered by Rugby players and based around stress management techniques, finding life balance, managing setbacks, coping strategies, anger management and problem solving.
The partnership talked about the importance of learning from this programme – particularly around how this type of activity is marketed to men and how men are involved in the development of the programme.
Start Art Campaign
Start in Salford shared information on their awareness campaign around suicide prevention. A candlelit remembrance vigil is being held on Monday, 10th September (Suicide Prevention Awareness Day), 6.30-7.30pm at the Lowry Plaza, The Quays, Salford, M50 3AZ. A remembrance roll for those who have died by suicide will be read out on the day. Anyone wishing to add their loved one’s name to the roll can email dennis.baldwin@startinspiringminds.org.uk
As part of the campaign work, Start is also delivering an art installation called ‘Sea of Hands of Support’ which shares positive messages of support and experience. A project to share the experiences of people who have survived suicide is also underway.
Communications Update
As part of the Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership, a Communications Group focuses on the messages and information shared around Suicide Prevention across the city. A communications plan has been developed and will see a number of targeted messages to specific groups and communities over the next year.
2017 Audit
Every year, Salford Public Health carries out an audit of the number of deaths by suicide in the area. This helps us to understand how we can help to support people as early as possible and prevention people considering suicide. The headlines from the Audit were shared with the group and a full report is expected in October.
Our next Suicide Prevention Partnership will be in October 2018 and we will look to provide another update following this meeting. To be added to the email network for additional information, please contact: clare.mayo@nhs.net.
Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership Update: May 2018
Greater Manchester Updates
Six Degrees Social Enterprise has been tasked by Greater Manchester to map the bereavement support available in each of the 10 localities in Greater Manchester. This will be a 6-9 month piece of work and the findings will inform the pilot of a service to provide practical support and to support referrals to local support in each locality. This aims to support people who have been affected by an unexpected death to reach the right support and help in a timely way.
Another Greater Manchester project is to explore a real-time data system. This would notify appropriate services that there has been an unexpected death, with the aim of getting support to people bereaved as quickly as possible. The project is looking at what is available in other areas and is currently planning the best pathway to ensure that information is shared.
The Partnership received an update on the work being carried out by the communications team in relation to suicide prevention. Campaigns on social media in Salford are currently focusing on Mental Health Awareness Week, issues raised by the Coronation Street storyline and the anniversary of the Manchester Arena attack. The Communications Team have developed a media pack which contains videos, gifs, pictures, tweets and facebook posts – all of which have been shared with partners across Salford. The CCG webpages on suicide prevention have experienced over 8300 visitors and the support pages have received over 2000 hits.
The Partnership also discussed the range of other types of communications available to share messages for suicide prevention.
Start in Salford – Reach Out to End Suicide
Start in Salford is running a campaign to promote suicide prevention. This work is funded through grant applications and focuses on a number of key projects which use arts to share messages of hope and support. You can find out more about the projects here: https://www.startinspiringminds.org.uk/our-projects/reach-out/
Child Death Overview Panel
The Partnership looked at data which started to highlight the things that may impact on young people’s vulnerability to the risk of suicide. A better understanding of this will help us to plan ways of supporting people as early as possible to reduce the risk.
Audit of Hospital Attendance For Those People Aged Under 19 Years For Suicide And Self Harm
This information will help us to think about how we support young people who are presenting at A+E for self-harm. It was agreed that it would be useful to look at case examples of those people who have presented to A+E multiple times and those people who have presented once to see how support could be better structured.
New Partnership Members
The Salford Suicide Prevention Partnership welcomed Salford University as a new member. Bernadette Conlon from Start in Salford was agreed as the VOCAL Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Representative on the Partnership.
Audit of Deaths by Suicide in 2016/17
Every year, Salford Public Health Team undertakes an audit of people who have died from Suicide in Salford. There were 23 deaths between the 1st January 2016 – 31st December 2017. Based on the findings of the audit, the recommendations for this year were to focus approached on the following high risk groups:
Suicide Prevention Action Plan
The Partnership looked back through the action plan to see what had been completed, what new actions needed adding and if there were any incomplete items. A full draft of the action plan is available.
Bereavement Support
Greater Manchester has agreed to fund a Bereavement Support service. This will offer practical, coordination and signposting support to those bereaved by suicide. Salford CCG will lead this work on behalf of Greater Manchester. There will be some work carried out in the first six months of this project to see how best it should run.
Greater Manchester Standards for Preventing Suicide and Self Harm in General Practice
These standards set out the best approaches for suicide and self-harm prevention in general hospitals. There has been a joint piece of work between Salford Royal Foundation Trust and Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust to look at the standards and agree on any improvements that need taking forward. From those discussions, work has been ongoing around the following areas:
Awareness Resource
A fold out business card style resource for use in the community was agreed. It will contain information on one side for helping others, and information on the other side for helping someone else. This is currently being designed and is hoped to be ready for the end of March. The resource will be tested in two areas of Salford (Pendleton and Eccles), along with additional awareness raising resources.
Training
Safetalk training (a half day training session on suicide prevention) is being piloted with Hairdressers, Barbers and Tattoo Artists across Greater Manchester. There is a session taking place in Salford on the 26th March.
Suicide Safer Community Accreditation
This is a large submission for accreditation with Living Works. In line with the 9 pillars of suicide prevention, the accreditation requires evidence to demonstrate commitment to improving a local approach to suicide prevention. There is an aim to submit this application towards the end of March.
Greater Manchester West Safety Plan
This work focuses on people attend A&E but who are not appropriate to be followed up by the secondary mental health services and are being supported by the GP.
Lead practitioners, clinicians and service users have worked together to design the booklet. The booklet asks the service user to identify:
It also records the name of the person dong the assessment and a list of useful contact numbers. This work complements the follow up support offered by Samaritans after someone has visited A&E for support with mental health problems and the work relating to the 48 hour wellbeing check and 7 day follow up for people being discharged from inpatient support.
Communications
Since the last meeting, the communications group have focused on campaigns on social media, including:
From 11th December until January 2018, the messages reached 545,000 people across Twitter and Facebook.
The next steps for the communications group are to carry out filming of two people’s experiences and interviews with people undertaking the Safetalk training. Over the next year, the communications group will focus on reaching the following groups: men 40-59, children and young people, construction workforce, BME groups and LGBT communities.
Start In Salford: Suicide Prevention Campaign
As part of Start’s 25 year anniversary this year, they will be running a suicide prevention campaign. This will cover a range of activities including art installations, amplifying the voices of survivors and memorial activities. For further information on the campaign work, please visit: https://www.startinspiringminds.org.uk/our-projects/reach-out/
The Salford Suicide Prevention Board meet quarterly. Below is an update on where our work to preventing suicide in Salford is up to:
Audit
Each year, we look at data from both the police and fire and rescue databases, along with information from the Coroner's reports, to help us decide where we might need to do more work. This year’s information tells us similar information to the information included in the Strategy. It also tells us that we might need to look back on information over the past 10 years, as it is hard to identify themes by year. Our most recent audit report will be available in the early part of 2018.
People’s Views
Our engagement team has been out and about in Salford to a range of community activities, festivals and events to talk to people about Suicide Prevention. Over 200 local people have told us where they think we should be starting to deliver suicide awareness information. We had lots of great ideas, from pubs, to hairdressers, to sports clubs and local supermarkets! We will be using this information to help us plan how we share our awareness raising information.
Locations
We have been looking at data from the Police records and the Fire and Rescue databases to learn more about which areas of Salford might have a higher risk for suicidal thoughts and actions. We know that areas with higher levels of poverty are more at risk, as well as some particular areas of the City. Understanding this information will help us to think about where we start our suicide prevention awareness raising activities.
Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan
Our Salford Suicide Prevention Strategy 2017 - 2022 is now published. This sets out our approach to suicide prevention in Salford, as well as our ambition to have zero deaths by suicide. Our Strategy and Action plan are available on our web pages. Our action plan will be updated regularly.
Partnerships
We have been extending our partnerships as we recognise that suicide prevention is everyone’s business. We have widened our partnership to include other organisations such as Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises, Fire and Rescue and Healthwatch. We have also developed a network group which includes faith communities, charities, organisations and individuals with an interest in suicide prevention. Our aim is to share information following each Partnership meeting and engage with the network when we are planning big pieces of work.
Social Media
We have been running a social media campaign using videos to share key messages about suicide prevention. We have also been sharing information on Facebook and Twitter and will be developing more social media content over the next few months.
News
We have been sharing our work through news articles on Key 103, in Life in Salford and through the CCG Patient Panel.
We have set up a communications group which is looking at the information we develop and the awareness campaigns we will be delivering to raise awareness of suicide prevention.
Suicide Prevention Awareness Pack
We will be getting a group of partnership members, people with personal experience and network members together to help us to think about how we share messages about suicide prevention. We have been looking at what information is already available and we hope to have a resource pack by the new year. We will be using the information on Salford locations and the things that local people have told us to develop a plan around how we share this information.
Information for Employers
We have been looking at toolkits which are available to help employers think about supporting the emotional wellbeing of their employees and to plan how best to support suicide prevention in the work place. We will be looking at using the best toolkit to help our biggest employers in the City.
Information for Education
Papyrus (an organisation to support young people who are feeling suicidal) has a great information pack for schools, colleges and universities. We want to share this information with Salford schools and help them to think about the emotional wellbeing of their students. We also want to use some of the drama sessions in Schools to think about the support the people might need if they feel suicidal.
Holiday Season
The holiday season is nearly here and we know that this can sometimes be a difficult time of year. We will be looking at making sure that we share contact details for support over the winter period.
We will be looking to apply for accreditation from Living Works (https://www.livingworks.net/community/suicide-safer-communities/) for our Suicide Prevention work. This will mean that we need to provide details of all of the work that we are doing to prevent suicide in Salford. We hope to have achieved the accreditation by early 2018.
Our next Suicide Prevention Partnership will be in February 2018 and we will look to provide another update following this meeting. To be added to the email network for additional information, please contact: clare.mayo@nhs.net.
