Suicide at highest level in years with Army males at most risk

THE suicide rate in England is the highest in a quarter of a century, new figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recorded 5,579 suicides in England last year, the most since 1999 and a 5.5 per cent increase on the 5,284 in 2022.

Newly released figures from 2021 also suggest male Armed Forces veterans aged between 25 and 44 are nearly twice as likely to take their own lives as other men of their age.

The ONS cautioned that the 2023 statistics are based on the year deaths were officially registered. Long delays mean just 39.3 per cent of the deaths registered in 2023 occurred that year.

The figures suggest there were 11.1 suicides for every 100,000 people in 2023, up from 10.5 the year before.

London had the lowest suicide rate of any region of England, while the highest was in the North East, at 16.2 deaths per 100,000 people.

The ONS has also conducted the first ever analysis of suicide among Armed Forces veterans in England and Wales, finding that males aged between 25 and 44 had a higher rate of suicide than men of their age who had not served in the forces.

The rate for male veterans aged between 25 and 34 was 38.2 deaths per 100,000 and it was 33.5 deaths per 100,000 among those aged 35 to 44.

This is compared with 18 deaths per 100,000 among 25 to 34-year-olds in the general population and 18.8 deaths per 100,000 among men aged 35 to 44.

The ONS also found that veteran suicides represented almost five per cent of all deaths by suicide in 2021.

There were 253 veteran suicides out of a total of 5,175 in people aged 16 years and above in 2021, 4.9 per cent.

No fewer than 93.7 per cent of veterans who died by suicide were male. The rest were female.

The figures equate to about 15 suicides for every 100,000 veterans, with 16 suicides per 100,000 male veterans and seven suicides per 100,000 female veterans.

Firearm discharges accounted for 5.9 per cent of suicides among male veterans in 2021, the ONS said, compared with just 1.6 per cent in the male general population.

The analysis, which included reservists, primarily focused on male suicides because veterans are mostly men.

The analysis was based on death registration records linked to Census 2021 and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Service Leavers Database (SLD).

Samaritans, which supports those in emotional distress or at risk of suicide, criticised the Government for cutting funding for preventing suicides.