Real-time suicide data a ‘serious consideration’ in Queensland, Mental Health Minister says

Real-time data could be collected on the number of Queenslanders who have suicided or attempted suicide and made available to help authorities respond to immediate need for support.

Queensland might start collecting data on the number of Queenslanders who have suicided or attempted suicide.

Real-time data could be collected on the number of Queenslanders who have suicided or attempted suicide and made available to help authorities respond to immediate need for support in specific communities, The Courier-Mail can reveal.

The policy position from Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA) that states and territories enable real-time notifications for suicide deaths and attempts to help services respond to distressed communities is under serious consideration by the Queensland government.

Mental Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said she supported the proposal and work was already under way with the Mental Health Commissioner to make it happen.

While Queensland already has a suicide register, run by Griffith University, a report is only prepared once a year.

Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

The NSW Suicide Monitoring System (NSW SuMS) is a collaboration between NSW Health, the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), the State Coroner and NSW Police, established in October, 2020.

NSW Health publishes monthly reports on suspected and confirmed deaths by suicide.

People in rural populations are two times more likely to take their life by suicide and this years the Western Downs community of Dalby, where there has been four suspected suicides of young people in the first quarter of 2023.

SPA said access to accurate population-level data regarding suicides was vital for program resourcing and to target key populations in suicide prevention interventions.

Professor Brett Emmerson. Picture: supplied

But Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Professor Brett Emmerson said that interpreting suicide data was not always an easy task

“Just a number doesn’t tell you everything, and you often have to wait for police and a coroner’s analysis to be clear, and sometimes you never know if it was or was not a suicide,” he said.

The Queensland Suicide Register contains a broad range of information regarding suicides in Queensland, including the circumstances of the death, preceding life events and psychiatric history.

StandBy, Australia’s leading suicide postvention program dedicated to assisting people and communities bereaved or impacted by suicide, acting general manager Amanda Glenwright said research showed that for every one life lost by suicide up to 135 people are impacted, 10 of those people are significantly impacted.

“The goal of StandBy is to really support those people through what is a really horrific period to navigate those really tricky times and provide some really tailored support for those people for up to two years,” she said.

She said the fact there was no timely national notification system for suicide notification made responding to an increased number of suicides within a particular community tricky.

“We are made aware through those systems in the various states and territories … all the states and territories are in different stages with their notification systems,” she said.

“(There is) myriad of challenges in building a notification system … but what works really well for StandBy is being so embedded in the community and trying to raise the profile and awareness of the program means that people are more likely to refer on.”