Poulter – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Poulter on 2015-11-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many suicide attempts were recorded by health bodies in England for each year from 1995 to 2015; what that number was as a proportion of the population; what the ethnic backgrounds were of those people attempting suicide; and how many of those people were previously known to mental health services.

Alistair Burt

In 2012 the Department announced investment of over £1.5 million over three years on suicide prevention research and development.

Data on the funding allocated to suicide prevention is not available from 1995. The tables below show the funding that was allocated from Department of Health programme budgets to suicide prevention between 2011/12 and 2015/16 and self-harm prevention from 2012/13 – 2015/16. Prior to this, funding allocated to suicide prevention was held within broader mental health strategy budgets.

Funding allocated to suicide prevention between 2011/12 and 2015/16

* Includes £70,000 allocated by the Department to Public Health England to publish Help is at Hand, suicide bereavement support document.

Funding allocated to self-harm prevention between 2012/13 and 2015/16

Source: Department of Health

Information on the number of suicide attempts recorded by health bodies in England is not held centrally.