Our response to the 2025 Spending Review
Today is the spending review – the day when we hear how much each Government department has to spend for the coming three years.
We have seen the headlines – the NHS has been given an increase of £29 billion to its budget which is welcome news. But the detail of how that money will be spent is yet to come. The spending review doesn’t include a single mention of suicide or suicide prevention, but it’s not too late.
In the weeks ahead, the Government will release its 10 year health plan – setting the direction of the NHS and health spending for the next decade. The plan must go beyond the spending review and prioritise specific funding and actions to prevent loss of life to suicide.
The Government’s “health mission” has a strong focus on tackling the biggest killers, including suicide. The ambition is clear but for the Government to achieve this, efforts to tackle suicide must be scaled up – with the 10 year plan setting in stone this commitment.
We want to see a focus on the delivery of the national suicide prevention strategy with the Government committing to going further and faster to take the action needed to save lives from suicide.
And, as part of this, it must be recognised that the Government won’t meet its ambition to tackle suicide without the vital work of charities like Samaritans.
Suicide prevention charities across the country provide life-saving support every day – from helplines, to face-to-face support groups, to outreach into communities that need us most. At Samaritans, we take 3.3 million calls a year – answering a call for help every 10 seconds. We answer during the night when callers are more likely to be suicidal yet many NHS services are closed.
The reality is that charities like ours plug the gaps in mental health services. In the last 18 months over 390,000 callers needed Samaritans despite using NHS mental health services – a number that is on the rise.
But as of this April, we receive no Government funding towards our helpline. A vital source of funding for so many charities – the VCSE Suicide Prevention Grant Fund came to an end with no new funding announced. This came hot on the heels of the Government ending dedicated local suicide prevention funding in March 2024.
The reality is that funding for suicide prevention has dwindled down to next to nothing. To deliver our life-saving work, charities are reliant on donations – on the generosity of the public. And this is even more precarious at a time when many people across the country are facing economic hardship.
We are continuing to see unacceptably high rates of suicide with the shocking fact that suicide is the biggest killer of people under the age of 35 and the biggest killer of men under the age of 50.
This Government must act now. It must put its money where its mouth is and prove its commitment to tackle suicide with dedicated funding as part of its 10-year health plan.
Jake Runacres, Policy and Influencing Manager