NEW GUIDANCE: Staying safe from suicide: Best practice guidance for safety assessment, formulation and management

Today, the NHS has published Staying safe from suicide: Best practice guidance for safety assessment, formulation and management. This new ‘wrap around’ suicide prevention guidance will help clinicians provide more personalised care for patients struggling with suicidal feelings.

The guidance will help providers move away from the previous risk stratification used to predict a person’s risk of taking their own life, replacing it with a far more personal approach.   

This new approach means mental health practitioners will work with all patients where there is a concern about suicide safety to co-produce a personal risk formulation and safety plan. The guidance has been developed alongside people with lived experience of suicidal thoughts, and key professional bodies and charities including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Nursing, British Psychological Society, Rethink Mental Illness, and the Samaritans.

The guidance applies to all mental health practitioners in England. It complements existing guidance for inpatient services.

Please share this important guidance across your networks.