Completed Suspected Suicide Statistics April 2021 to December 2021

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Keywords

Suicide, Attempted, Cases, Statistics, Completed, Recorded, Monthly, Breakdown, Category, Categories, Method, Suspected, Coroner, Verdict, Ovenstone, Criteria, Death, Prevention, Activities, Contagion, Office, National, Real-Time, Surveillance, Project, RTSSS, HM Coroner.

Publication Number

PUB 1363

Publication Statement

Please note that this information is correct as at 16 February 2022 and may be subject to change. Essex Police aim to review and update this publication 6 monthly.

As with all publications of information by Essex Police, please note caveats may apply regarding the accuracy of data.

Title

Completed Suspected Suicide Statistics

Date Range

April 2021 to December 2021

Background Information

Essex Police are unable to accurately extract Suicide or Attempted Suicide statistics from our current systems as we do not record any record types for Suicide on either S.T.O.R.M. (Command and Control System) or Athena (Investigations System). However, we have been recording Completed Suspected Suicide* statistics since April 2021.

FOI Publication

The data is correct as at 16 February 2022.

Dates: April 2021 to December 2021.

Data: Completed Suspected Suicides* only collated from April 2021 onwards, we do not record Attempted Suicides.

*This data is collected in Essex for the National Real-Time Suspected Suicide Surveillance (RTSSS) Project. HM Coroner is the only person that can make a determination of suicide. Coroners verdicts often come sometime after the death, in some cases this can be a year or more later. It is recognised that it is difficult to inform suicide prevention activities and respond quickly to contagion if the data we are basing our plans on is out of date. The RTSSS Project was, therefore, implemented to allow ‘real-time’ collection of SUSPECTED suicides. Public bodies such as Police and health colleagues can make a determination that a case is a SUSPECTED suicide, based on the Ovenstone Criteria and report this as RTSSS data. This does not mean that the case will go on to be declared a suicide by HM coroner, however, it gives public bodies up to date reliable data with which to inform their suicide prevention strategies.

Monthly Breakdown for 2021

Month	Number of Completed Suicides
April 2021	8
May 2021	10
June 2021	13
July 2021	9
August 2021	6
September 2021	13
October 2021	8
November 2021	15
December 2021	10
Total	92

No further information will be provided by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 40(2) Personal Information

Section 38 Health and Safety

Section 40(2) Personal Information

Providing any further breakdown in relation to suicide data may allow individuals to be identified.

Section 38 Health and Safety

Overall Harm

Disclosure of information under the FOIA is a disclosure to the world and the above exemption needs to be considered. Bereaved families often resist the continued disclosure of information relating to a death as family members are likely to be distressed if disclosure is made without consent and unexpected disclosure would likely to remind a family of a time that they received unexpected life changing and devastating information about their family members. Even if disclosure has been provided in court, data disclosed to those in attendance and through the media at that point in time does not necessarily mean that it would be fair to disclose details or circumstances under the FOIA especially where control of that information has been lost.

Public Interest Test

The Factors Favouring Disclosure for Section 38

Disclosure of the information would lead to better informed public awareness on how the Police conduct investigations and the use of public funds ensuring transparency in the activities of the public authority especially in cases such as suicide where some information may already be in the public domain.

Factors Favouring Non-Disclosure for Section 38

Disclosure of the information would cause significant distress to the family.

Releasing the information could also jeopardise the physical and mental well-being of members of the family who are only just coming to terms with events of the past in relation to such matters. Disclosure of the information would, therefore, result in a loss of confidence in the public authority to protect the well-being of the family and local community.

Balance Test

Disclosure under the Act is a disclosure to the world not just to the individual making the request. The Police Service will never divulge information if it will affect the health and safety or well-being of individuals or groups of people. Although the way the Police conduct investigations should be transparent and shared with the public, they have a greater duty to protect the public from harm or distress. Therefore, in this case, the balance lies in favour of non-disclosure of the requested information.

Every effort is made to ensure that the data provided by Essex Police is accurate and complete. However, Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the purposes of providing data to answer specific FOI enquiries. Please note although data can be extracted from a number of sources via database queries, the results may be subject to inaccuracies. Care should be taken to understand our return when considering the interpretation or further use of the data.

The Force Information Management Board chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable has oversight of the Force wide programme of work to improve the quality of Force data. This work has identified data quality leads in all key areas of the business including the Crime and Public Protection Command. Liaison between the Force Data Quality Team and the Crime and Public Protection Command lead for data quality will identify and resolve issues through a variety of mechanisms to ensure regular and appropriate supervisory oversight.

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