A SUICIDE prevention action plan aimed at reducing the rising number of deaths in St Helens has been approved.

There were 73 suicides in St Helens between 2014 and 2016, a rate of almost 16 per 100,000 population and the fourth highest in England.

To help address the rise, St Helens has established a multi-agency Suicide Prevention Partnership, which is led by Public Health.

It also includes representation from St Helens Council, St Helens CCG, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Merseyside Probation Service and voluntary sector organisations such as the Samaritans.

The People’s Board, which is made up of representatives from various organisations, were asked to approve the 2018 Suicide Prevention Action Plan on Wednesday.

Ann Marr, chief executive of St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, questioned how much had changed from the previous plan.

She said: “Given the numbers have only gone in one direction from where we were some years ago, is this plan completely different to the plan we had that hasn’t been effective?

“And have we done studies of places where they’ve actually gone the other way and actually improved their suicide rates to find out what they did?”

Sue Forster, the council’s director of public health, said the plan is being developed across Cheshire and Merseyside

Ms Marr said there was a danger of 'group think' if the authority only compares with areas within Cheshire and Merseyside.

Ms Forster said other areas will now be looked at outside the two boroughs.

She said there is a lot more emphasis on working with primary care and mental health services and working with high risk communities linked to drug and alcohol, in the new plan.

The public health boss said the plan needed the full cooperation of partners to work, and also accused some partners of 'not playing their part' in the past.

“Suicide is very complex and risk assessment is really, really tricky,” Ms Forster said.

“And we absolutely have to have everybody playing their part.

“And what I would say what has not happened, is everybody has not been planning their part.”

She added: “I would say if everybody played their part then this would start to work.

“However, there is a whole other piece of work around just improving public mental health generally.

“Everybody has mental health like they have physical health and we need to improve it in our borough.”

The plan is divided into four key areas – prevention, safer care, support and bereavement from suicide and intelligence.

Numerous actions are detailed within the four areas, some on-going and others still in the planning stages.

Prof Sarah O’Brien, the council’s strategic director of people’s services and clinical accountable officer for St Helens CCG, said there was not enough focus on adolescents.

“I think adolescents in the borough are a high-risk group, and we’d quite like to see that come through in the plan,” she said.

Tom Young, chairman of Healthwatch, said was 'heartened' by the work that has gone into the action plan.

However, he said more work needs to be done to make it easier for parents to speak to professionals about loved ones in need of support.

The People’s Board approved the 2018 Suicide Prevention Action Plan