'Credit card' advice initiative to prevent suicides

The Shropshire and Telford Suicide Prevention Network said it is handing out the cards to those who may be experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Shropshire Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board was told it is hoped the cards have numbers and advice for people who are feeling vulnerable. Gordon Kochane, responsible officer, said: “A credit card sized brief advice and intervention z-card has been designed by the Shropshire and Telford Suicide Prevention Network to target those who may have suicidal thoughts or who may be concerned about someone else.

“The tag line for the card is ‘pick up the phone, you’re not alone’ and provides some guidance and contacts of a primary contact for support when required.

“We intend to do a pilot print run of these cards and target them in areas of high footfall of the public/higher risk individuals.

“Although there is no budget allocated to suicide prevention currently, we are currently in the process of collecting quotes and working with our partners to help fund this.The intention will also be to have an electronic copy linked to the council website and ideally make use of digital technologies in the future.”

He added: “A subset of the Shropshire Action Group are designing a model for supporting those bereaved by a suicide death.”

“The intent is to ensure a co-ordinated package of individualised care can be offered/signposted to immediately following a suicide and to develop a model which co-ordinates an offer of longer term support (for up to two years) where required.

“This is important as those affected by a suicide death are at significantly higher risk themselves of taking their own life/self-harm or experiencing a mental health crisis.

“Although a proposed model is still being developed, national funding to support the process is available from NHS England for localities with a real time surveillance system for suicide is in place.

“Both the Shropshire and the Telford Suicide Prevention Action Groups are now working with West Mercia Police to discuss what data we can access to identify targeted support to those bereaved by a suicide death, as well as to utilise learning from completed/attempted suicides for future prevention actions (such as identification of hotspot locations/emerging trends etc). We are proposing that a suicide review panel is formed to assist with this purpose.”