Bury’s Lib Dem Councillor Tim Pickstone discusses how to tackle the North West’s increasing suicide rates:

 

In Britain last year 4,700 people committed suicide. Three quarters of them were men, and suicide is the largest cause of death for young people and young men in particular.

The North West has the second highest numbers of suicide rates in Britain. Last year 567 men and 146 women took their own lives in the North West.

Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, made an important announcement as part of a major commitment to ensuring mental health services get the same commitment as other health concerns:

Nick Clegg said: “Suicide is, and always has been, a massive taboo in our society. People are genuinely scared to talk about it, never mind intervene when they believe a loved one is at risk.

“This isn’t about blame. It is about doing more in every area of our society to ensure that people don’t get to that point where they believe taking their own life is their only option.”

In some areas of the the USA, health services have managed to get to a situation where there are zero suicides for people receiving healthcare support. Some areas of the UK already have plans in place to achieve this by 2017 (Liverpool, South West, East of England).

We believe this is something that should be tackled in our area, and Lib Dem Leaders across Greater Manchester are writing to the NHS in Greater Manchester asking for this issue to be raised.

You can join our campaign to stamp out stigma in mental health by signing up here.