- The Cheshire and Merseyside Public Health Collaborative has been working on suicide prevention for more than a decade
- The LGA has provided support over two phases, helping the collaborative to re-shape its approach to the issue
- Lead Director of Public Health says help has given the collaborative ‘brain space’ to reflect and adapt
The Cheshire and Merseyside Public Health Collaborative (Champs) brings together nine public health teams across the region. It has been prioritising suicide prevention since 2015 and its current strategy, which runs from 2022 to 2027, has set an ambitious target of working towards preventing all suicides. After more than a decade of focus and with a new strategy on the horizon, Champs turned to the LGA to help it reflect on what needed to change.
Sefton Director of Public Health Rory McGill, the Champs DPH lead for suicide prevention, said: “We wanted to take an honest look at what was happening and what the new challenges were. We know things are changing – we are now seeing a broader mix of people taking their own lives and more children and young people engaging in self-harm. The ambition of having zero suicides in the region needed to be updated as unfortunately suicide will happen, however we need to be putting the measures in place to make suicide less common.
“We wanted to learn from what we’ve done, but we also need to be realistic about what a future strategy should look like. The goal isn’t to set a standard where the region never has any suicide at all - it’s to build a system that reduces risk, responds earlier and supports people better.”
Honest conversations
Two LGA experts – a former Director of Public Health and a voluntary sector consultant with wide experience of suicide prevention work - were brought in during early 2025 to carry out a situational analysis review. They conducted around 30 one to one interviews with key stakeholders, including public health officials, representatives from the voluntary and community sector and senior figures from the NHS.
The aim was to build a picture of how the current strategy was working and how the local system was responding to it. The experts produced a report pulling together their findings. It noted all nine areas had developed their own plans, saying there was strong support from elected members and the suicide prevention leads network, with each public health team appointing a member of the workforce to champion the work, an approach which was well regarded and effective.
The situational analysis report made a number of recommendations, including bringing in extra capacity to help the development of the next iteration of the strategy, greater partnership working and calling for a more integrated approach to governance with the NHS-led Mental Health Programme Board.
Rory said the support and advice the LGA provided was invaluable. “The LGA experts gave us independent eyes and ears. They created space for honest conversations we wouldn’t always have internally, and they weren’t afraid to highlight where the gaps were. It gave us the brain space to step back and reflect.”
Champs Suicide Prevention Programme Manager Neil Boardman agrees. “Having the LGA involved meant people felt able to speak freely and come forward with ideas. If the process has been undertaken internally, some might have been worried that their comments sounded like criticism of the current processes - even though it wouldn’t have been taken in that way.
“The external perspective made a real difference. People trusted the process because it was independent and that helped us get richer insight.
“The report’s recommendations were areas we were already aware of but having them confirmed independently really mattered. It gave us confidence and reassurance that we were on the right track. One of their key recommendations was increasing capacity. And that’s exactly what we did - we brought the LGA back in.”
‘A sense of momentum’
The second phase of work was more focussed and targeted. This time the LGA experts carried out 18 interviews in total, concentrating on securing stronger involvement from partners and looking ahead to the development of the next suicide prevention strategy.
A number of recommendations have been put forward that are being considered by the Cheshire and Merseyside suicide prevention partnership board. The focus is on creating a more bottom-up approach. The recommendations included creating campaigns at distinct levels of geography to strike a balance between local and regional work. This could include utilising local assets, such as football and rugby clubs.
“We’re beginning to think about the suicide prevention partnership board as well in terms of its renewed purpose and membership to ensure we have the right partners present,” said Neil.
“Everyone has competing priorities and we need to be honest about that so we’re considering the most effective ways to engage with key partners including those within the voluntary sector to involve them in a way that makes better use of their expertise.”
Steps have, however, already been taken to strengthen leadership and coordination. Rory now sits on the mental health programme oversight group and Neil has taken a place on the operational group, ensuring suicide prevention is firmly connected to the wider mental health agenda. Consistency has been brought to suicide audits that are carried out by the individual public health teams with reporting of cases done on three-yearly cycles to take into account the small numbers.
And discussions are under way about how to better support the suicide prevention leads. “In carrying out the audits, they can be exposed to some quite distressing information and images,” said Rory. “Coroners staff and even blue light staff receive training in how to handle this. But our staff are doing this as just one part of their roles – my lead at Sefton, for example, combines it with work on sexual health. So, we’re looking at what support we need to provide them – it could be access to counselling or training to help them.”
He says it is all part of a renewed appetite to drive forward with the work and adapt to the changing challenges. “The system has been energised. There’s a sense of momentum - that this is something we can genuinely shape together.”