Public Health officials have published a 2023 to 2027 suicide prevention strategy.

The strategy comes as the island saw a spike in suicide rate in 2019, 2020 and 2022 in comparison to England and Jersey.

The strategy states: ‘The reasons why someone takes their own life are usually complex.

‘The response to suicide needs to be equally far reaching, with all departments of government, the third sector and communities working together.’

The strategy considers five core elements, which each include objectives to achieve in the next five years.

The first element was increasing partnership and leadership for suicide prevention.

The strategy aims to do this by establishing a suicide prevention network consisting of individuals, groups and organisations committed to suicide prevention; establish a suicide review panel to focus on opportunities to prevent further deaths and promote the importance of wider determinants of health.

The second category is intelligence.

Under this, the aim is to create and maintain a data set capable of tracking the progress of the strategy, finalise a suicide audit and maintain a database that is capable of spotting merging trends and links with other suicides.

The third category is increasing resilience, awareness and training.

Under this, objectives include, an all school review of PSHE to ensure quality resilience training for children and young people, develop wellbeing support for staff in vulnerable roles, and develop a community suicide prevention awareness plan.

The fourth element is prevention.

Under this the strategy aims to commission a suicide specific rapid response outreach service which would provide bridging support until no longer required and re-establish contact with individuals.

The service would work in conjunction with a non-critical support service for people in suicidal crisis.

The final element is safer care.

Among the objectives to achieve this are to work with Manx Care and the Department of Health and Social Care to significantly increase the capacity of CAMHS and move emphasis from ‘risk management plan’ to a more collaborative and enabling ‘personal safety plan’.

Dr. Sean McLachlan, public health lead for suicide prevention said: ‘Suicide is tragic, but it is not inevitable and it is always preventable.

‘If we work together and we support those amongst us who are struggling, we can reduce and eventually end suicide on the Isle of Man.

‘Suicide is everybody’s business.’