How many suicides have been recorded in NHS mental health wards in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.

All NHS boards’ mental health services carry out individual suicide reviews that examine the circumstances of suicides of patients under their care with the aim of making mental health services safer. Healthcare Improvement Scotland provides a unique resource through the Suicide Reporting and Learning System which analyses these reviews to promote learning and improvement strategies throughout Scotland. The primary aims of this process are to learn any lessons that help to improve services, to reduce risk and to improve the actual process of suicide reviews.
In-patient suicide data for Scotland
The following in-patient suicide data has been provided by Healthcare Improvement Scotland for the past five years from January 2009 to April 2014 based on reviews from NHS boards’ mental health services.
Total In-Patient Suicide Figures – Jan 2009 to April 2014
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Total
16
12
18
18
23
7
94
Healthcare Improvement Scotland has confidence in the completeness of reporting over the past two years but not the first three years of the current arrangements so comparisons of annual data should be made with caution.
In-patient suicides by health board
Healthcare Improvement Scotland does not publish in-patient suicides by health board for the following reasons:
The numbers are very small and there is a high risk of the unintended disclosure of the identity of individuals, particularly in the smaller health boards. This would constitute a breach of confidentiality and the risk of great distress for the relatives of the people who have died.
Suicide is a multi-faceted and multi-factorial phenomenon. Suicidal risk can be increased by mental illness, social circumstances, addictions, life events and many other factors. The nature of mental health services and the communities they serve vary greatly across Scotland. Publishing completed suicides by health board could lead to unjustified comparisons of health board performance in relation to what is a highly complex and sensitive subject.
The primary purpose of reviewing the circumstances of the suicides of people in contact with mental health services is to identify areas of improvement and to share learning that can help reduce the risk of suicide. This requires a culture of openness and sharing which is not well served by using suicide statistics as a mental health services performance indicator.