Coventry City Council

Coventry City Council is a local government organisation responsible for the governance of the city. The city is divided up into 18 wards, each with three councillors. Coventry has usually been controlled by the Labour Party over the last few decades. In 2013 the public health service transferred from the NHS to local governments and the service now leads on public mental health well-being and suicide prevention on behalf of the Council, reporting to the Health and Well-being Board and via internal scrutiny committee governance structures.

Our work in suicide prevention

Through the public health and well-being service, Coventry City Council supports a multi-agency suicide prevention steering group. The strategy, action plan co-ordination and delivery monitoring are supported by the team. The Council is also part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Health and Care partnership. Within the mental health and emotional well-being programme there is a specific work stream around suicide prevention and the NHSE funded programme to tackle the high rates in the area. Working through the public health and well-being service, a number of partners have been brought together to develop pilot projects and look at ways of embedding the learning for the future. Across the WM a suicide prevention sector led improvement (SLI) programme has also been established. The DPH in Coventry leads the SLI work programme.

Our current priorities

The initiative focuses on improving mental health support and suicide prevention through several key strategies. It seeks to establish a clear identity for public communications, incorporating digital and interactive self-help resources. The development of postvention and bereavement support services is a priority, alongside resourcing comprehensive training on suicide prevention and trauma support, both face-to-face and online.

A primary care approach will address key areas such as polypharmacy, GP training, and reviewing pathways for depression and self-harm. Tailored support for at-risk groups, including individuals with dual diagnoses of mental health and substance misuse, is also emphasised. Additional efforts will enhance crisis response and support, improve referral and discharge pathways across community and specialist mental health services, and promote the involvement of experts by experience through co-production and advisory panels.

Our current challenges

Locally, across the health and care partnership and in the WM region we have shared operational challenges around information sharing and plans to support real-time surveillance as part of a multi-agency response.

Setting up a process that brings together criminal justice, police and crime boards, coroner and safeguarding arrangements (including the child death overview panels who review deaths by suicide in u18s) in a shared approach with clear governance arrangements is complex. Some targeted work around engagement of the relevant boards and contacts is being undertaken to initiate this. A joint escalation plan is in place with Network Rail and BTP to formalise multi-agency arrangements for incident responses on the rail network, we have begun to map this data and we are working toward an improved response from community services.