Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has committed to an audacious goal of working towards zero suicide, based on the belief that suicide is preventable and amenable to intervention.
Our Aims
We aim to provide a compassionate and responsive approach through the delivery of our revised strategy based on best practice.
- A compassionate, supported and competent workforce
- Continuity of care to safeguard transitions within, into and out of our services
- Rapid learning from incident themes and preventable adaptation
- Listening to our service users, families and stakeholders to understand and respond to what is needed
- Effective interventions designed for all those who require them
- Satisfied engaged stakeholders at all levels
- Assurance through transparent data and quality improvement
- Reliable, consistent and high quality suicide prevention care built into our service delivery systems
Our Strategy
The basis for our new strategy is informed by advancements in suicide prevention care, along with learning from our first phase 2017/2019. We recognised that suicide can only be preventable if the care provided is based on best evidence for preventability and organised consistently, systematically and in a reliable way. The new strategy is particularly informed by:
- Themes in service provision and clinical practice from deaths by suicide
- The successes and challenges of our key interventions during the first phase
- The latest research and best practice in suicide prevention
CLEAR3 is a concept, service delivery and system design model with a combination of features from research and best practice evidence deemed necessary for excellent suicide prevention care. It is a model that can be applied to all service settings and clinical systems.
Our Briefing Paper includes further information and detail on our identified work streams summarised below:
Key Interventions and Workstreams
- Transition protocol to standardise practice and safeguard continuity of care
- Compassionate, safe and meaningful follow up in all our settings following contact
- Assurance through competency based e-RISK training (Effective Risk Intervention Skills) for all staff including safety planning. Extend reach of training to community health via bespoke means
- Access to multi level effective interventions for suicide prevention including addictions services
- Learn from and empower our partners (i.e. GPs and Universities) and family about their experiences and what support is needed to enhance suicide prevention care
- Work to develop intensive support protocol and care for people with known risks and multiple complex needs who may disengage
- Improve transparency and accuracy of data accessible to all teams and Trust Board
- Improve ability of organisation to learn quickly to avoid incidents, access independent decision support and consultation via the Safe from Suicide Team
- Link into accreditation process so that teams can work towards accreditation for delivering high quality suicide prevention care based on strategy
All activity is monitored via the Safe from Suicide Team with accountability to the Centre for Perfect Care (CfPC). The implementation is in partnership with the Clinical Divisions as part of the Trust’s Operational Plan.
Our Team
During our first phase a new team was created to ensure the effective implementation of Mersey Care’s Zero Suicide goal. The scope of the team has now evolved to meet the needs of the new strategy.
The Safe from Suicide Team operate within the Centre for Perfect Care (CfPC) and is made up of a number of specialists in the area of suicide prevention.
One aspect of their role is to support teams across the organisation in delivering the Trust’s goal of zero suicide. This is a long term strategy and the support offered includes:
- Tailored training in suicide prevention including clinical risk management,
- Provision of future regular bulletin, updated intranet learning site to support reflection on incident themes, latest best practice and advances in suicide prevention
- Development of associate role and network to support staff engagement for QI in suicide prevention
- Post incident support for teams
- Oversight and guidance regarding any incident involving a possible suicide
- Provision of consultation and clinical decision making relating to service users and potential risk of suicide
- Assisting clinicians with the development of personal safety plans
- More strategically designing pathways for transition and continuity of care
Team Membership and Accountability
Steve Bradbury Deputy Director for Innovation and Improvement CfPC
Dr Claire Iveson Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Clinical and Strategic Lead for Safe from Suicide Team, Safety Planning and Zero Suicide Strategy
Dr Rebeca Martinez Consultant Psychiatrist and Associate Medical Director for Safe from Suicide Team
Steve Messenger Programme support and Data lead for Safe from Suicide Team
Angela Brown Centre for Perfect Care and Safe from Suicide project support
To find out more about our ‘Suicide Prevention’ initiative and how you can get involved or how we can help your organisation, please contact us at
