When will Higher Education Student Suicides get the Review they Deserve?
By Balwant Kaur
The current trajectory being taken by a much-needed review of Higher Education student suicides is deeply flawed. It’s a shallow and poorly constructed research project. So, how did we get here, what are we trying to do about it and how can you support the campaign?
This blog includes a brief summary of a letter received from the then Minister for Higher Education Robert Halfon MP and a couple of meetings ForThe100 Coordinators Group recently attended. Firstly, we had a meeting with the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) and then a meeting with Robert Halfon MP and Edward Peck, HE Student Support Champion. Following on from these meetings we also want to announce a letter writing campaign that we are inviting people to take part in which is asking the government for a comprehensive, at least a ten-year, review of historical Higher Education (HE) student suicides.
In July 2023 a Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce briefing announced the commissioning of an “independent organisation” to conduct a national analysis of “local reviews of student suicides”. Further details were announced in Sept 2023 within a Taskforce paper outlining a National Review of Higher Education Student Suicides.
ForThe100 considered this proposal contained many shortcomings and produced a report that is an ‘Evaluation of the September 2023 Proposal by the Government’s Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Task Force for a National Review of Higher Education Student Suicides’ (Oct 2023). The report was signed by 15 families bereaved by HE student suicide, and shared with the then Minister for Higher Education Robert Halfon MP, members of the Taskforce, MP’s and various media outlets.
Following this a few things happened:
Letter received from Minister Halfon, December 2023 in reply to the evaluation report.
We were informed that the University of Manchester’s National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) would be undertaking a review of HE student suicides.
The letter then focussed on how the government is ensuring all students receive “the mental health support they need and that the sector is doing all it can to prevent suicides in their population”.
Our evaluation report had clearly stated the “focus needs to shift from blaming students for struggling, to addressing the underlying systems which leave them vulnerable” and that “there should be a concerted effort to bring about systemic changes in the higher education landscape”.
Instead the Minister expressed hopeful wishes and optimism, without any substantiation, by stating “I am confident that the sector will work proactively to support this work and do all that they can to learn from suicides” and that this will be magicked by “creating a culture of admitting where mistakes have been made, rather than encouraging defensive behaviour”.
Needless to say, the letter left us feeling that the government’s hopeful thinking is a bit delusional because the real issues raised in our evaluation were not addressed and all remain outstanding.
Meeting with NCISH, Professor Louis Appleby (Director of NCISH) and Dr Cathryn Rodway (Programme Manager) February 2024.
We established that NCISH has only received funding to undertake the “study by examining serious incident (SI) reviews of suspected suicide by HE students, conducted by HE providers in line with guidance published by Universities UK”. This one-year study will focus on the academic year 2023-2024 and excludes the devolved nations.
At the meeting we also refused to share our ‘stories’ on the basis that we were there to ensure the processes which could capture all of our 'stories' (not just those present at the meeting) are thorough and undertaken ethically. We were clearly informed NCISH does not have the funding to review historical material. They informed us that although families can submit historical material, depending on how much they receive, they may or may not be able to look at it.
The main outcomes of the discussion were that NCISH proposed they may consider a university ‘duty of candour’ similar to the NHS and work out a way of feeding back findings from the study to the national coroner’s network.
Preparing for our meeting with NCISH
Meeting with Minister for Higher Education, Robert Halfon MP and Edward Peck, HE Student Support Champion and Chair of the HE Mental Health Taskforce, March 2024.
Prior to the meeting it had been stipulated that we could not talk about a statutory duty of care for HE students. Hence the main question we posed to the Minister was:
All of us have children who died and that is why we are here. We believe that there is nothing the government is currently doing that would have saved them. We do not think the government understands what the problem actually is. In order to identify what the problem is, you have to work out what happened, otherwise you are imagining things. With that in mind, can you tell us whether you are going to look at historical cases?
After a lot of fudging Minister Halfon and Edward Peck conceded that, contrary to the ‘optimistic’ messages they had been sending out, NCISH was not funded to undertake any kind of historical review. They had thought it would be sufficient for a few ‘historical stories’ to be shared with NCISH.
The Minister then suggested a comprehensive historical review is something the government might be able to look at in the future. For the time being, he would try to increase the scope of the current study to begin in December 2022 when Universities UK Serious Incident review guidance was issued.
We argued that the proposed time frame of the 2023/2024 academic year is shortsighted and will not provide a comprehensive understanding of the issues, trends and contributing factors which often develop over several years. An omission of a robust system for retrospective reviews means the HE sector is not learning from previous failings. This leaves current and future students at serious risk of potential harm and they are effectively being used to test existing systems. Hence we suggested they undertake a comprehensive, at least a ten-year, review of historical HE student suicides by sourcing and analysing evidence which already exists:
o The Office for National Statistics holds data on HE student suicides.
From this the families affected can be identified. However we do have concerns about their process for identifying HE student suicides, as it is riddled with anomalies, which leads to an under estimation of the true figures. For example, students who die between the end of an academic year and before registering for the subsequent year can be omitted. This would include students who die whilst at home during the holidays or fail resits outside the academic year. Delays in inquests being concluded can also mean some students are omitted on the date the data is downloaded.
o Prevention of Future Death (PFD) Reports issued by coroners to institutions, based on the evidence presented at an inquest.
This system has variable efficacy as coroners are rarely experts in how universities function and universities are very good at narrowing the scope of an inquest in order to avoid scrutiny. Hence the breadth and depth of evidence gathered may be limited.
The scope of an inquest can also be arbitrarily restricted by a coroner and the issuing of a PFD is dependent on a Coroner’s discretion. Even when there are clear concerns about an institution, if they present an action plan that satisfies the Coroner a PFD may not be issued but there is no mechanism for checking if action plans are implemented. Responses by institutions to PFDs are also rarely scrutinised to the level of ascertaining if effective changes have actually taken place.
Due to coroners’ discretion, similar failings across institutions may or may not result in the issuing of a PFD. Implementation of PFD findings are not being monitored on an ongoing basis so failings keep being repeated. PFDs contain a limited amount of information and without the contextual information about a specific case it is difficult to gather meaningful themes from this source of evidence alone.
o Written Evidence submitted by families to the Petitions Committee in 2023, to inform the parliamentary debate on a Statutory Duty of Care for Students in Higher Education.
Families did report problems with this process as the word length was limited to 500-1000 words. Some stated that if you “make it too brief you glaze over the problems, which need to be seen in context”. Hence any reductive analysing of ‘themes’ emerging from limited contextual information may not always be representative of the whole range of themes present.
Most importantly we requested that any evidence obtained from families should be sourced by impartial, skilled professionals who are also equipped to provide support to grieving families in collating and compiling the material. Families who are bereaved by HE student suicide experience deep trauma and they need to be clearly informed of how their material will be analysed and used.
Call for a Comprehensive Review of Historical HE Student Suicides - A Letter Writing Campaign
We urgently need to ensure that the newly appointed Minister for Higher Education, Luke Hall MP, is made fully aware of shortcomings of the NCISH brief. If a review of HE student suicides is going to have any value whatsoever, it is absolutely vital that a proper in-depth review of material involving a much greater timeframe is undertaken diligently and that proper funding is in place to support this.
We therefore encourage everyone to write letters urging that the government undertakes a comprehensive, at least ten-year, review of all the material available in relation to historical cases of HE student suicides.
Please write to Luke Hall MP, Minister for Higher Education luke.hall.mp@parliament.uk and copy in:
Your own local MP
Matt Western MP, Shadow Minister for Education matt.western.mp@parliament.uk
Munira Wilson MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Education munira.wilson.mp@parliament.uk
Please also write to your own local MP and urge them to write to Luke Hall MP in support of this matter.
The louder our voices, the more likely we are to be heard! Your support in this matter would be very much appreciated.