The Sucide Prevention Consortium, a group of organisations including Samaritans, National Suicide Prevention Alliance, Support After Suicide Partnership, We Are With You, and who are part of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance, have launched a new briefing Insights from Experience: alcohol and suicide. The briefingoutlines findings from surveys conducted with people with lived experience of suicide, self harm or service use and their experiences with alcohol.
The briefing highlights 4 key findings and recommendations to enable people to get better supported.
The reports key findings were:
- There is no one size fits all approach
- For many, alcohol is part of a bigger picture
- Some people who had attempted suicide were dismissed or judged by healthcare staff due to drinking alcohol
- There’s a need forfurther exploration of people’s experiences of alcohol and suicide, so that voices of lived experience are at the centre of policymaking.
The briefing also calls for investment in services to increase capacity and expertise, and further training and recognition on the role that alcohol can play in suicide and the need to address the person rather than the problem.
