suicide

Suicides in rural settings are a big issue and whilst we should absolutely not suggest one tragedy is any less serious than another their relative high incidence in farming communities makes this policy agenda, without taking political sides, interesting!

A Labour government would aim to reduce deaths from heart disease and strokes by a quarter over 10 years and see suicide figures decline within five.

The Labour leader is giving a speech on the party’s NHS policy later.

Labour’s new targets for the health service will be part of a wider package of reforms if it is elected, Sir Keir will say, with a focus on modernisation, hitting existing cancer targets, and cutting waiting lists.

He will say it is “not serious” to argue the health service’s problems can be solved with extra funding, and call for “serious, deep, long-term changes”.

More than 5,500 deaths were registered as suicides in England and Wales in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – around three quarters of which were men. Women under the age of 24 have seen the largest increase of any group since data started being collected in 1981, an ONS study found in 2022.