A new Suicide Prevention Strategy for Scotland

Overview

The Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) will publish a new Suicide prevention Strategy and Action Plan in September 2022. This will replace the current Suicide Prevention Action Plan: Every Life Matters which was published in 2018.

Every Life Matters sets out ten actions which are driven by the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group (NSPLG). The Plan continues to deliver a wide range of actions, including: campaigns to reduce stigma and promote suicide awareness (with a focus on reaching groups with a higher risk of suicide), improving suicide prevention skills of the workforce; ensuring effective, compassionate support to anyone in crisis, supporting local suicide prevention planning and design and testing of new services for people in suicidal crisis and following a bereavement.

Good work is already happening across Scotland – nationally and locally – to prevent suicide, and the new Strategy and Action Plan will build on that foundation, whilst being ambitious and going further than before, to ensure fewer lives in Scotland are lost to suicide.

The final version of the Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan will be published in September 2022.

The draft Strategy and draft Action Plan can be accessed at the bottom of this page, under ‘related documents’. You may find it helpful to open these before you begin the consultation questions so you can refer to them as you go through.

Please be aware that there is also a consultation exercise underway on a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. You may wish to share your views on that consultation and can access it here: Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Consultation