Suicide prevention standard – developing crucial guidelines

Standards and conformity assessment have at their core the aim of addressing problems and providing solutions to fix them.

Whilst the more well-known and recognised standards and conformity assessment solutions solve quality, environmental, sustainability, health & safety and food safety issues, it was the recognition of their ability to address often complex issues which inspired IIOA Chief Executive Marcus Long’s idea to address the very difficult and complicated issue of suicide prevention with a new standard.

In 2020, Marcus’ son Adam took his life. Seeking to find a positive out of this terrible situation, the idea of a suicide prevention standard came about. The next stage was discussing this with standards bodies to see if there was interest in developing such a standard.

Having seen UK National Standards Body BSI publish BS 30416 – Menstruation, Menstrual Health and Menopause in the Workplace, there was clearly precedent for an organisation who wanted to address difficult issues.

After a workshop in early 2024 at the Houses of Parliament with stakeholders, in June 2024 BSI approved the development of the Suicide Prevention standard. A drafting panel of experts was formed and this panel is working towards the creation of the draft standard; this will then be open for public consultation in late March/early April 2025.

The standard will provide comprehensive guidelines to support organisations in developing, implementing, and monitoring effective suicide prevention strategies.

The public consultation phase is crucial as it enables every organisation and individual the opportunity to comment on the standard, helping make it a better document to help reduce the terrible level of suicide.

The drafting panel then considers the comments made during the public consultation, with final publication set for September/October 2025. Then the work really starts: organisations implementing the standard, setting up strategies for organisations to help prevent suicide amongst individual workers or those using that organisations’ services.

To find out more about the standard: 

• Marcus explains in this video the inspiration for the standard, what it aims to do and the process to create it.
• The Institution of Occupational Safety & Health magazine article about the standard.  This article is also available as a pdf
• Crucially the page on the BSI website about the standard and where to register for updates, including the draft for consultation.