A report by a committee of MSPs said that a Bill to legalize assisted suicide should be thrown out.
Source: Stage 1 Report on the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, 1st Report 2010, SP Paper 523, Scottish Parliament End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill Committee
Links: Report | Scottish Parliament press release | Text of Bill | Explanatory notes | Policy memorandum | Christian Institute report | BBC report
Date: 2010-Nov
A survey found that young people in Wales often had negative attitudes towards those who displayed suicidal thoughts or actions.
Source: Welsh Youth Consultation on Suicide and Help Seeking Behaviours, Mind Cymru
Links: Report | Mind press release | BBC report
Date: 2010-Nov
A think-tank report said that legalizing assisted suicide would risk having a 'strident elite' condemning the less fortunate to a premature death – because it was 'the marginalized, the disabled, the less articulate and the poor' who were most likely to be under pressure to accelerate their death.
Source: Cristina Odone, Assisted Suicide: How the chattering classes have got it wrong, Centre for Policy Studies
Links: Report | CPS press release | BHA press release | Telegraph report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Oct
A study found that young, black women were significantly more likely to self-harm than people from other ethnic groups. People from black and minority-ethnic groups were less likely to receive specialist psychiatric assessment and access to follow-up services after an episode of self-harm than people from the white population.
Source: Jayne Cooper, Elizabeth Murphy and Roger Webb, 'Ethnic differences in self-harm, rates, characteristics and service provision: three-city cohort study', British Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 197 Issue 3
Links: Abstract | Manchester University press release
Date: 2010-Sep
A report said that many people who harmed themselves were failing to receive the help they needed because of a 'patchy' provision of services and a lack of supervision and training of National Health Service staff.
Source: Self-Harm, Suicide and Risk: Helping people who self-harm, College Report CR158, Royal College of Psychiatrists
Links: Report | RCPsych press release | Samaritans press release
Date: 2010-Jul
An annual report said that people with mental health problems were committing fewer homicides in England and Wales, while the number of suicides by mental health patients had also fallen. A previous rise in homicides by mentally ill people might have been the result of drug misuse.
Source: Annual Report: England and Wales, National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness/University of Manchester
Links: Report | Inquiry press release | Sane press release | Mind press release
Date: 2010-Jul
The Crown Prosecution Service published (following consultation) a policy statement on prosecutions in cases of assisted suicide. It set out 16 public interest factors to be considered, including whether the 'victim' had reached a 'voluntary, clear, settled and informed' decision to commit suicide.
Source: Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide, Crown Prosecution Service
Links: Policy statement | CPS press release | Consultation responses | CofE press release | SPUC press release | BBC report | Community Care report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Feb
There were 5,706 suicides in 2008, up from 5,377 in 2007. Despite a peak in 1998, the trend in suicide rates had been generally downwards since 1991. In 2008, there were 17.7 suicides per 100,000 population in men, and 5.4 per 100,000 in women.
Source: Suicide Rates in the United Kingdom: 1991-2008, Office for National Statistics
Links: Report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Jan