Mental illness : key area handbook / Department of Health.

  • Great Britain. Department of Health.
Date:
1994
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Mental illness : key area handbook / Department of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/184 (page 41)
    3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 Providers should incorporate these measures and undertake regular assessments, initially ona sample basis at specified intervals. The brief standardised assessment procedures will be available to the NHS and SSDs in final form in 1995. Further information is at Appendix 11.3. Organising information on suicides In order to assess appropriate action to reduce suicide rates, it is necessary to develop a more comprehensive local picture of the incidence of, and factors relating to, suicide and attempted suicide. It is also necessary to identify the number of people with a severe mental illness to measure reductions in suicide rates amongst this group. This will initially need to be collected from: @ people in contact with the social and psychiatric services @ surveys of GPs and community agencies @ hospital settings, particularly AXE departments. DHAs and LAs will want to establish annual suicide figures. Due to the likelihood of random fluctuations at local level, health and social service authorities should consider using a five year rolling averages, using 1986-1990 data to establish an initial baseline against which changes in the local suicide rate can be measured. Authorities will want to correlate suicide figures to a wide range of indicators — including socio-demographic background, ethnicity, age and sex (see para 3.2 and Appendix 3.1). This information should be incorporated in mental health information systems (see Chapter 11). Suicide figures can be obtained from the OPCS, the Public Health Common Data Set and through the local coroner’s office. Establishing links with pathology departments will enable access to a great deal of information about suicides contained in pathology reports. Local information on suicides should also contribute to and benefit from reports of the Confidential Inquiry into Homicides and Suicides by Mentally Ill People. Further information is at Appendix 3.3. 41 MENTAL ILLNESS