Suicide prevention and postvention

It can be difficult to talk about suicide. It might feel hard to discuss when someone has lost a loved one to suicide, if a colleague has disclosed suicidal thoughts, or if someone in your organisation has taken their own life. However, since suicide can be preventable, it’s important for employers to know how to bring up this sensitive topic with compassion and confidence.

This is especially important within the NHS – nurses are four times as likely, and doctors twice as likely, to die of suicide than people working in any other profession in the UK.

NHS Employers have put together this short web page with facts about suicide, links to resources which might be helpful for managers, and signposting to crisis help for those at risk of suicide. It’s ideal for leaders and managers within the NHS to learn more about this topic, and to keep to hand if they need to support a colleague in the future.