Student suicide review says unis must act to stop more deaths

Universities in England have been told to step up efforts to prevent student suicides, in a review commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE).

A report, which has been in the works for nearly two years, says they should assess the safety of student halls and involve families more after a student has died.

Its recommendations, which are the first to ever be issued to university leaders by any UK government, include discouraging the laying of flowers where a student has died if it could draw attention to a “suicide location”.

The family of Natasha Abrahart, who took her own life in 2018 while at the University of Bristol, called the review “superficial”.

The national review of higher education student suicide deaths, first seen by BBC News, examined 169 cases of suicide and serious self-harm reported by 73 universities in 2023-24.

It found almost a quarter of incidents, where the location was known, took place in university-managed accommodation, and that families had mostly been excluded from serious incident review processes.

It said there was a particular risk of “suicide clusters”, which Public Health England describes as “a situation in which more suicides than expected occur in terms of time, place, or both”.

In a series of 19 recommendations, it asked universities to:

• Conduct safety checks of university halls and any area where a student has died
• Consider discouraging people from placing tributes in that area “to avoid drawing attention to the site as a suicide location”
• Better support students who are struggling academically
• Improve transparency and make families’ input a “key part” of investigation processes

Universities have also been asked to review access to their mental health services.

Vika Zak, who studies animation at Nottingham Trent University, told the BBC she felt staff were there for her when she reached out for support.

“They emailed me, and I’m pretty sure they sent me a letter, to let me know there are services that I could take advantage of if I needed it. It’s really nice to know that.”

Sam Lloyd, a product design student, said the university sent out “quite a few” emails letting students know about support services.

“If you really need it, it’s very easy to reach out,” he said.

But the review said that access to mental health support “could be improved” across the sector in terms of “awareness, signposting, and reviewing the needs of specific groups” like international students.

“While some reports identified a need for support services to ensure active follow-up following contact, many placed the responsibility on the student to seek further help,” it said.

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Bob and Maggie Abrahart, whose daughter Natasha took her own life while she was studying at the University of Bristol in 2018, called the review “superficial”.

“There’s no obligation to do what it says on the tin,” Mr Abrahart told the BBC.

“For ministers to say ‘we expect them to do their duty, to do things properly’ is just pie in the sky.”

He added that universities had been given “shelves of recommendations” before, including guidance issued by Universities UK (UUK) to its 141 members.

Mrs Abrahart said universities should have a legal duty of care, which would require all universities to act with reasonable care and skill so as to avoid causing harm to students.

“It’s doing your job carefully,” she said. “What is unclear is what is academics’ job, and what isn’t.”

The DfE announced the review in 2023, commissioning academics from the University of Manchester, who are part of its National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health, to conduct it independently.

Asked why a legal duty of care had not been introduced, skills minister Jacqui Smith said there were “some legal challenges”.

“We do think that universities have a general duty of care to their students,” she said.

“We’ll be absolutely clear with universities that this is their responsibility. We’ve made resource available and we will continue to challenge them to deliver that.”

The review comes at a time of increasing pressure on universities’ finances.

The Office for Students (OfS) said this month that more than four in 10 universities in England are expecting to be in a financial deficit by this summer.

Prof Sir Steve West, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England and a UUK board member, said universities needed to work out how to implement the recommendations “effectively” and how to “prioritise”.

“That’s easy to say [but] very difficult to do because there are all sorts of issues hitting universities at the moment which often compete, and we have to make choices,” he said.

He added that there should be more discussions on how to enforce standards across the sector, including whether universities should have to file reports on their progress to regulators.

The DfE is due to meet with university leaders to discuss the findings of the review this week.

Additional reporting by Andrew Rogers, BBC Newsbeat.