North West Ambulance Service
We serve more than 7 million people across approximately 5,400 square miles – the communities of Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire and Glossop. We receive approximately 1.3 million emergency 999 calls and our Patient Transport Service undertakes 1.5 million journeys per year to those who need non emergency transport to attend healthcare appointments. We deliver the NHS 111 service across the region handling more that 1.5 million calls per year.

Our work in suicide prevention
The aim of North West Ambulance Service is to be the best ambulance service in the country by delivering the right care, at the right time, in the right place, every time. Mental health has been identified as a priority for our organisation and suicide prevention has been identified as a key area for development within our Right Care Strategy and our Mental Health and Dementia Strategic Plan – both of which were launched in 2019.
We are working closely with our partners in terms of embedding a multi-agency approach to suicide prevention, we have an NWAS Suicide Prevention steering group that is representative of the whole of our organisation and we have a programme of work which will take us up to 2022.
We recognise that our staff are our main asset, and due to the nature of their work are exposed to trauma and this can impact on mental health – we are committed to promoting good mental health within our staff from recruitment until retirement and this work is underpinned by our Staff Wellbeing Framework/Strategy.

Our current priorities
We are committed to upskilling and training our staff in mental health, including suicide prevention skills that encompass prevention, intervention, and postvention. Our efforts include refining and utilising data on suicide and self-harm to identify trends and themes, and developing mechanisms to share this information with partners to improve patient outcomes. This includes creating an information dashboard for our suicide prevention work and collaborating with Public Health and ICS colleagues on a regional dashboard for real-time surveillance of suicides, attempts, and self-harm.
Working within our communities and alongside local and regional multi-agency suicide prevention networks, we aim to reduce and eliminate suicide. We prioritise supporting our staff’s mental health by ensuring clear mechanisms are in place for those experiencing suicidal thoughts, collaborating with national colleagues and the AACE to develop guidance and tools, and creating an organisational document to support staff at risk or those affected by suicide. Additionally, we value lived experience, with two patient panel members contributing to our suicide and self-harm prevention work. Their unique insights are pivotal to the care we provide and the progress we make.

Our current challenges
We face several challenges in our suicide prevention efforts. These include ensuring adequate capacity to participate in all locality-based suicide prevention strategy meetings and addressing the lack of crisis support pathways outside of Emergency Departments for staff to refer patients who are suicidal. Historically, mental health training within the Ambulance Service has been limited, a national issue we are actively addressing.
With over 6,000 staff to train, this remains a significant challenge. We are collaborating with Public Health and ICS colleagues to source training across our service area while continuing to develop an internal mental health training programme aligned with national priorities. Additionally, we are working to create a culture where staff feel it is ‘safe to talk’ about their mental distress, although stigma remains a barrier that is slowly improving.
