Suicides in East Lancashire at three-year high

An internal inquiry is way at Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust over two patients who took their own lives on Darwen Ward, at Royal Blackburn Hospital.

And the problems associated with the multi-storey car park in Broadway, Nelson, the site of two tragic falls in recent weeks, are also being examined by agencies.

But aside from this, attempted and actual suicides across the region’s six boroughs have hit a three-year high, with 16 out of 29 cases countywide recorded in Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Ribble Valley, Rossen-dale and Pendle.

Four were attributable to Blackburn with Darwen, with the remaining 12 distributed across the five other boroughs, according to figures released by Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust.

For the final three months of 2008 the rate in Lancashire was 17, and for the same quarter last year it was 13.

Extra resources have been placed into primary care services in a bid to identify suicide risks more quickly.

In a report to the NHS trust, medical director Max Marshall says: “This will ultimately result in the identification of more patients with serious mental illness at an earlier stage.

“There have been a number of incidents resulting in death using Nelson car park.

“The trust is currently working with the police, borough council, car park owners and the primary care trust to reduce the risk of the car park.”

Health officials say there is no pattern em-erging in relation to particular teams or wards run by the trust, which include other wards at the Royal Blackburn, facilities at Burnley General and a number of smaller East Lancashire units.

Mr Marshall says the trust will also be reviewing post-discharge services for patients and seeing if there any systemic failings.

An East Lancashire suicide prevention pan-el, comprised of health workers and representatives of the coroner's service, is also looking at ways to address the 19 suicides or undetermined deaths in the Rossendale valley last year.