Suicide prevention in the workplace

31 January 2024

Suicide prevention in the workplace

**UPDATED FOR 2020 following recent high profile media cases.** 

A while ago, I attended a ‘Suicide First Aid’ (Understanding Suicide Intervention) course, which is a City & Guilds accredited programme, run by the formidable Andrea Newton (of ABD CCT).

When I first heard about the course I made the decision to attend for two reasons. My first was that during the course of my work I have, sadly, come into contact with people who have admitted to having suicidal thoughts, and so as a very real future possibility I wanted to ensure I equipped myself in the best possible way to be able to deal with any such conversations.  My second reason was that, unfortunately, I have first-hand experience of the impact and repercussions of suicide, having lost a very dear and close friend several years ago, the after-effects of which I continue to feel to this day.

The course has a subtitle of ‘how to have a conversation that could save a life’ and has the underlying theme of removing the immediate risk and intervening to get the individual able to get the professional help that helps them improve their (mental) health, just as you would attempt to do in a first aid situation of another nature – you aim to maintain safety and life in the moment. We talked about some pretty shocking statistics during the course:

• That every 90 minutes in the UK someone dies of suicide
• That 1 in 20 people will have suicidal thoughts at some point
• That you are therefore statistically more likely to come across someone with suicidal thoughts than someone needing CPR
• That 85% will ask in some way for ‘help’ (but are we aware of the signs?)
• That the biggest cause of absence in the UK is stress and mental health issues, leading to an average of 25.8 days per employee lost and an average cost of £1300 per employee - one in six employees experience mental ill health each year
• That women struggling with the menopause are more likely to consider suicide than at any other time in their lives • That on average, a single suicide emotionally injures 15 people connected to the individual and in total affects 160 people in some way or another
• And that UK men remain three times as likely to take their own lives than women and that suicide is the most common cause of death for men ages 20-49 in the UK

A comment that Andrea repeated throughout the course was that ‘suicide happens when the resources for coping with pain are not enough’. At other times, the person may have sufficient resilience for coping with what life is throwing at them, but a series of events and issues might lead to a situation where the next thing, however big or small might be the final thing that breaks them. This had even more resonance for me when I learned that a guy I had gone to school with had taken his own life. Even though I’ve not seen him for years, I thought of him as a normal, down to earth bloke and a typical man’s man. So it made me shed a tear that someone else I had known had felt that low and desperate that they believed there were no other options remaining to them.  Other friends have similar stories to tell.  

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has updated their first aid guidance, stating that employers should consider ways to “manage mental ill health in your workplace which are appropriate for your business” and provides further information relating to this. After all, we ensure we have first aiders in the workplace who can deal with immediate physical health issues, so why not mental health issues? A petition submitted to Downing Street, organised by Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England and supported by 50+ business leaders (including¸amongst others, chief executives from PwC, WH Smith and Thames Water) specifically called on ministers to amend health and safety legislation to put mental and physical first aid on an equal footing. And in September 2018, Prince William and MIND launched a new Mental Health at Work website. Thankfully it seems the subject is becoming less and less taboo and more action is being called for, but we are still seeing high profile and shocking cases.

So, if you’re reading this, please consider the following:

• Do you feel confident and able to have a conversation with someone who is having suicidal thoughts? What about the managers in your organisation - could they? HR might be the last people to know about an employees mental health issues and managers are massively influential on an individual’s experience of the workplace – are the managers in your organisation making the right impact?
• Are there policies in your organisation which take into account that someone may be feeling this way and if so, what is the impact of the policy on the individual – for example, maybe the individual has turned to alcohol as an emotional crutch so is the possibility of suicidal thoughts covered in your Substance, Drug & Alcohol policy?
• How much attention do we pay to the information that people give us – be this at the start of the working relationship, for example in health declaration documents, or along the line in return to work meeting and performance reviews? Are they giving us clues that they need help or support?
• Think about the culture of your company and the nature of your business. Are there any jobs in your organisation which require more consideration as to the wider impact of the duties and responsibilities within it?
• Have a look at the guidance available and consider whether more training or better policies are required. Be aware that a employer might be considered to be negligent in their actions if they had potentially known about the issues but had not taken any action to give support – think about the employer's duty of care.

And one final thought, if you are someone who could be in the position of talking to someone with suicidal thoughts, from my own experience this is a not something that can be taken on board lightly or without some emotional impact, so please do ensure that you build your own reservoir of resilience, construct your social scaffolding and invest in the pro-active things you can do to ensure you are in a good place to be able to help others – in the analogy of the plane crash situation, put your own oxygen mask on before helping those around you.

There is help out there for those who need it, in whatever form it may be.  Please don't struggle in silence.