In attendance: Bernadette Smith (General Registration Office), Inspector Kevin Gately (Gardaí), Sarah Craig (Health Research Board), Regina Ward (Department of Health), Hugh Duane (National Office for Suicide Prevention), Cat Hughes (Pieta House), Dr Paul Corcoran (National Suicide Research Foundation). Paul M. Crowley (CSO), Gemma Duff (CSO) and Carol Anne Hennessy (CSO),
Apologies from: Deirdre O’Reilly (Irish Prison Services), Dr Suzi Lyons (Health Research Board), Eugene O’Connor (Coroners Group) Eileen Williamson and Dr Ella Arensman (National Suicide Research Foundation), Colm Desmond (Department of Health) and Cindy O’Connor (Pieta House).
1. Welcome/Introductions
2. Agenda item No 2 - Agree Minutes of previous meeting of the 3rd February, 2017
and matters arising.
3 Finalisation of review of Form 104
4. Analysis of Suicide data applying the Pobal Haase-Pratsche Deprivation Index
5. Variation over time and across the country in suicide deaths
6. Suicide and Self-harm Observatory
7. National Self Harm Registry Ireland Annual Report 2016
8. Updated WHO resource on reporting on suicide in the media (WHO 2017)
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/258814/1/WHO-MSD-MER-17.5-eng.pdf?ua=1
9. AOB
Paul Crowley welcomed everyone to the meeting, made the relevant introductions and conveyed the apologies of the non-attendants to the meeting.
Inspector Kevin Gately has replaced Sara Parsons as the Garda representative on the group and Dr Paul Corcoran of the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF) has joined the liaison group.
The Minutes of the meeting held on the 3rd February 2017 were unanimously agreed.
The CSO had circulated the revised draft of the Form 104 after the meeting in February and requested approval of the draft in line with the discussions and recommendations of the previous meeting. However, 2 further suggestions were received (1 from the Prison Services and 1 from the NSRF) but no further changes were made and no further feedback was received.
The CSO reiterated the importance of Question 24 of the Form 104 i.e.
|
24. * Please state, in your opinion, whether death was: |
accidental homicidal |
suicidal undetermined |
The Garda representative advised that in general Gardaí were loath to offer an opinion that would form part of statistical outputs and the Gardaí do not want to differ from the Coroner’s verdict. As the Garda’s signature is on the Form 104 they are very slow to offer an opinion unless it is definite information only. It is the Gardaí that compiles the file for the Coroner’s office. Furthermore, there is a disconnect between the person investigating the death and the person completing the Form 104. The Gardaí need to be made aware that there are protections around them. It was agreed by the liaison group to add a note to Question 24: “This information is strictly confidential and is used only for statistical purposes:
Inspector Gately also advised that their Pulse data captures information on suicide. In recent years their Pulse data has 2 subcategories under the classification of Personal Misadventure and Self-Harm i.e. Suicide and Suicide Attempt. It would be a useful check for the CSO to view the deaths recorded as suicide on the Pulse records for a particular year and compare with the cause of death attributed by the CSO.
The Health Research Board (HRB) advised that they read through the Coroners files of drug and alcohol deaths and using certain criteria determine the number of probable suicide deaths. The HRB do not have to meet the Conner’s legal standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
The CSO presented the findings of this exercise having matched deaths that were coded to suicide in the years from 2007 to 2014 inclusive to the Geodirectory/Census address file and analyse the results by the Pobal Haase-Pratsche Deprivation Index. A copy of this analysis is attached to the Minutes. Of the 4,035 records where a match was found, just less than 49% resided in the most deprived areas.
Action
The NSRF is investigating if the rate of suicide/Undetermined intent varies across different counties\areas. It was requested that the CSO provide the numbers of deaths from suicide/undetermined intent by each Coroner over a 10 year period.
Action
The CSO circulated a paper on the Suicide and Self-Harm Observatory on behalf of the NSRF prior to the meeting as a point of information for the group.
The Suicide and Self-Harm Observatory (SSHO) has been developed with the core purpose of obtaining minimal data on suspected suicide cases from the Coroners (in advance of the Inquest), the Gardaí, the HSE patient mortality and the National Self-Harm Registry Ireland on a real-time basis.
The information collected by the SSHO will
a) Increase capacity for early intervention and help in the identification of emerging suicide and self-harm clusters.
b) Facilitate the implementation of local plans to respond to such clusters.
c) Assist in optimising resource allocation and location by means of spatial analysis.
d) Inform health service responses in geographical areas with recurring clusters.
Agenda item No 7 – National Self-Harm Registry Ireland Annual Report 2016
As a point of information The National Self-Harm Registry Ireland Annual Report 2016 is being launched on Wednesday the 27th September.
Prof. Ella Arensman of the NSRF works with the WHO and she forwarded a link to the WHO publication ‘Preventing suicide A resource for media professionals Update 2017. It was agreed that the CSO is to forward the link (below) to this document to journalists if they request information on suicide deaths.
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/258814/1/WHO-MSD-MER-17.5-eng.pdf?u
AOB
The next meeting will be scheduled for some time before Easter in 2018.
Carol Anne Hennessy
CSO
28th September, 2017.