A toolkit to help nurses recognise suicidal tendencies in lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) young people is due for release this spring.
PHE and the RCN are developing the information.The toolkit will contain practical advice for all nurses who work with young people, including practice nurses and school nurses. It will provide information to raise awareness in all nurses of the specific needs of LGB young people when it comes to suicide prevention.
PHE approached the RCN to help with the toolkit after a motion was passed at the RCN Congress in July 2014 for all student nurses to have suicide prevention training.
Ian Hulatt, the professional lead for mental health at the RCN, said: '[The toolkit] is being written and designed to meet the needs of people who work with young people so it will be suitable for school nurses and indeed practice nurses. We have seen the draft and now PHE are working on it with the opinions of other organisations such as the National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group.'
The information will be published in the next few months and will be available on the RCN website.
The RCN and the Mental Health Foundation will also be working with the family of a man who took his own life to make a joint call for early intervention and better mental health provision in the community.
They are calling for better support for GPs, to enable them to work more closely with other mental health services and to recognise warning signs in those at risk of suicide. They also recommend that there should be more community based mental health staff and coordinated care plans should be in place for at-risk people with mental health problems.
Figures released by the ONS have shown that suicide among men in 2013 was higher than it has been since 2001. The male suicide rate was more than three times higher than the female rate in 2013, with 19 male deaths per 100,000 compared with 5.1 female deaths.
The government also released its second suicide prevention report which highlighted the huge potential of primary care staff for preventing suicide. The report was released on 19 February and can be found on the DH website. The report looks at what local areas can do to prevent suicide. IN