Connecting for Life Goal 5: High Quality Services

To ensure safe and high-quality services for people vulnerable to suicide.

Goal five of Connecting for Life, Ireland's national strategy to reduce suicide 2015-2020, aims to ensure safe and high-quality services for people vulnerable to suicide.

Supporting people through a time of distress can be difficult work; therefore, agencies need to have good-practice guidelines, clear care protocols, appropriate training and supervision mechanisms. By ensuring the quality and standard of both statutory and funded non-statutory health and social care services and strong governance and accountability structures, service users and providers are protected and the professionalism and safety of the service response are enhanced. All services must promote an ambition for recovery, restoring the individual’s independence built on self-worth and self-belief.

Objectives

• 5.1 Develop and implement national standards and guidelines for statutory and non-statutory organisations contributing to suicide prevention.
• 5.2 Improve the response to suicidal behaviour within health and social care services, with an initial focus on incidents within mental health services.
• 5.3 Reduce and prevent suicidal behaviour in the criminal justice system.
• 5.4 Ensure best practice among health and social care practitioners through (a) the implementation of clinical guidelines on self-harm and (b) the delivery of accredited education programmes on suicide prevention.