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Health Secretary Hunt Challenges Mental Health Units To Battle Suicide Rates

One of the leading sources of death is depression or mental health illnesses leading to suicide. Healthy people are affected by these deaths due to many factors that are hard to control. It must be very difficult to face depression among the patients that are emotionally vulnerable and suicide is the result of giving into the challenges that people think they cannot face. This concern has reached the doors of the patients that are mentally weak.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is urging the NHS Mental Health units to prevent the increasing inpatient suicide.

jeremy hunt

Jeremy Hunt Challenges NHS to Achieve Zero Suicide Rate

The suicides of patients that happen on the wards yearly are a failure of care by the NHS providers, according to Hunt. Hunt wanted to cut the number of the patients that are taking their own lives on the watch of the NHS from more than 80 to none. It was Wednesday when Hunt made the speech telling the specialist mental health is trusting to not leave any unturned stone in order to decrease the number of the said inpatient suicides. While the United Kingdom has the lowest suicide rate in Europe, the sad truth is that each and every number of the inpatient suicide reflects in the failure of care, according to Hunt’s statement at an event, National Suicide Prevention Alliance.

Hunt said that before offering the highest standard of mental health provision, the causes of the inpatient suicides may be systemic but are never inevitable.

NHS Has Recorded a Decline in Suicide Rate as Years Pass By

NHS Has Recorded a Decline in Suicide Rate as Years Pass By

These deaths, according to Hunt, cause miseries that are untold to the patients’ families and even to the staff of NHS. Sights should be set high and aim for nothing that is less than zero. Hunt makes no promises about any new measures to deal with the chronic understaffing of the NHS mental health units. This issue relies on the staff of the agency to plug having vacancies for the doctors and nurses. Each year, there are 81-91 suicides in the NHS mental health units from 2012 until 2015. This number is fewer than 2005 which is 153. The patient safety has made a major progress that led to decreased deaths.

According to Hunt, the observation of patients having potential suicidal thoughts should be improved as well as the assessment of the risks of the elements surrounding the patient’s environment. He wanted to make an improvement on the patients’ personal care plans and more of to achieve the goal of zero patients taking their own lives.  This initiative of Hunt has taken an inspiration from the drive that is similar to zero inpatient suicides involved in emergency departments, clinics, and hospitals in the United States city of Detroit back in the late 1990s. The NHS located in Merseyside, east and south-west England have started to find a way to reduce their suicides to zero. This is why Hunt wanted all trusts. His ambition is to turn the numbers into zero.


Head of policy and campaigns at the mental health charity Mind, Vicki Nash, will back the move of Hunt.

While suicides cannot be avoided, they are, however preventable. The prevention can be done by having the right support in place. Giving them someone and keeping them in touch with the services for the help they need could prevent these thoughts from happening. This includes their most vulnerable point where they are in a hospital for their mental health.

Vicki Nash of Mind Support Hunt's Move

Vicki Nash of Mind Support Hunt’s Move

Trusts need to make sure that people receive a high standard of the treatment in an environment that is safe and therapeutic. Too many families mourn the death of their loved ones who lost the battle, where such cases could have been prevented. The support group is important for all people, we do not know how challenging the world would be in a second. In a beat, the world could change, unnoticed.

Everyone should be vigilant and exert more effort to observe the people around. Though not everyone has their significant others, there are still a lot of good samaritans that are willing to listen. The Samaritans in the United Kingdom can be reached on 116 123. Australia has a crisis support service Lifeline and can be contacted on 13 11 14. The NHS or National Suicide Prevention in the United States can be reached on 1-800-273-8225.

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