Scotland

The first Dumfries and Galloway Choose Life Conference was held on the 8th of September. A National Strategy And Action Plan To Prevent Suicide In Scotland  was funded by the  Scottish Executive. The conference was very well attended and member Dorothy Roberston reports that there was a great deal of interest in the PAPYRUS stand.

 

Isabel McCue, who runs Theatre Nemo, is currently providing drama based workshops in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison. Isabel says that she has given the HOPELineUK information and cards both to the mental health unit and also the main prison as they have  had a  number of suicides there recently.

 

The Choose Life website www.chooselife.net, which was launched in September, includes a ‘toolkit’. Essentially this toolkit is an online searchable database of resources relevant to suicide prevention. So far over 140 different resources have been identified.. Jacki Gordon (National Information Manager, Choose Life) said ‘Over time, we hope that the toolkit will expand as visitors to the website add more resources, or provide their own comments on those already listed. On behalf of the Choose Life Toolkit Steering group, I would like to thank PAPYRUS for taking the time to contribute to the toolkit's development.’

Northern Ireland

David Hanson has written on our behalf to Minister for Health for Northern Ireland, Shaun Woodward MP, who said in repy: ‘ I am deeply concerned about the issue of suicide and have made the issue a priority with the Department of Health, Social Service and Public Safety.  I have established a Taskforce to develop a Northern Ireland Strategy to tackle the problem and have asked it to report by the end of the year.

 

I have also asked the Taskforce to examine the provision and scope for a dedicated helpline for Northern Ireland and to undertake an examination of existing telephone counselling service provision within statutory and voluntary agencies. PAPYRUS’s experience in developing and running HOPELineUK could give the Taskforce a vital insight into how we might address this issue locally and I thank you for drawing this initiative to my attention.’

 

We are currently liaising with Colm Donaghy, Chief Executive of the Southern Health and Social Services Board based in Armagh and chairman of the Taskforce, and John Breen of the Investing for Health Team with a view to taking this forward.

Wales

Bibliotherapy, for those suffering from mental health problems, is a means of introducing a new effective form of psychological treatment into the primary care context, supplementing any existing primary care counselling provision and also extending the potential for psychological treatment to all  practices.

 

This means that GPs will have access to an alternative form of treatment. The GP may give a patient a paper based ‘prescription’ of recommended self help books. These books can then be borrowed from the local library free of charge. Most of the books present a structured Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach, offering complete step by step treatment programmes with exercises, self-assessments, diary sheets etc.

 

Many independent studies have demonstrated the clinical effectiveness of high quality self help books and in a recent Department of Health commissioned review it was concluded that self-help methods have a high potential in mental health treatment

 

A bibliotherapy service was first introduced in Cardiff using its award winning Book Prescription Scheme. The service is now being introduced across the whole of Wales as well as in other parts of the UK. The British Medical Journal has been given permission to list the recommended books on their web site.

Trustee Margaret Brunskill reports on the DoH Information pack for those bereaved by suicide.