Minutes of Meeting of Central Statistics Office (CSO) Liaison Group on Suicide Mortality Statistics

28^th January, 2015.

In attendance: Prof. Ella Arensman, Eileen Williamson (NSRF), Bernadette Smith (GRO), Paul M.    Crowley, Marie Crowley, Kieran O’Shea and Carol Anne Hennessy (CSO).  

 Agenda

Date:   28^th January, 2015.

Meeting of Central Statistics Office (CSO) Liaison Group on Suicide Mortality Statistics

• Draft Terms of Reference:  Discussion and Amendments

• Liaison group membership

• Processes followed by the CSO for unnatural deaths

• Context of the proposed Suicide Mortality Statistics Liaison Group

(New National Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention in Ireland, 2015-2019; WHO Report – Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative)

• Frequency of meetings

• AOB

 Agenda item no.1

The Terms of Reference were agreed.

Agenda item no.2

Proposed membership of group agreed excepting for a representative of the Press Council as part of the liaison group at present. If the group expands at a future date then there may be a change in the roles as outlined in the Terms of Reference for the liaison group.

Agenda item no.3

The CSO outlined the procedures that are followed in coding unnatural deaths, late registered deaths and the use of the Form 104 in this process.

Action:

• CSO agreed to review the Form 104 in conjunction with liaison group
• The group agreed to consider providing a training module on the completion of Form 104 for Gardaí in Templemore.
• CSO to consider scanning (in bulk) Forms 104 from 2006 to facilitate future research projects.

The CSO explained the necessity for sending the Gardaí a form 104 for completion in the majority of deaths that are referred to the Coroner.  This form is used for getting demographic details as well as medical reasons e.g. in the case of a road traffic accident, the type of vehicle etc. may not be provided in the Coroner’s report.

The NSRF would like more data available on suicide by method particularly when drugs are used to check for patterns that may arise in the data e.g. the use of benzodiazepines used in isolation or with alcohol or with other drugs.  CSO has this information in text strings held electronically.

The CSO outlined its review of the four suggested recommendations by the National Suicide Research Foundation 2007 Report on “Inquested Deaths in Ireland: A study of routine data and recording procedures”.

1. Relating to new initiatives:   Action: outside the remit of the CSO.
2. Existing Form 104:  Action: Reviewed by CSO in 2014 and found to be fit for purpose.
3. Relating to the death registration system:  Action: Outside the remit of the CSO, concerns the General Registration Office and the Civil Registration Act 2010.
4. Relating to research – Action: The suggested analytical project would require dedicated resources outside of the core workload of the CSO.  The CSO does intend merging suicide records to the census records in 2011 to pick up small area data from the census data.

Agenda item no 4

The NSRF provided information around the New National Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention in Ireland, 2015-2019 and the World Health Organisation Report – Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative.

The importance for consistent reporting was also stressed by the NSRF.   The CSO report undetermined deaths separately to suicide deaths.  Not all countries do this.  The NSRF also pointed out that the Department of Health 5 year suicide prevention framework will monitor and evaluate changes in trends e.g. change in trends in male self-harm rates.

Agenda item no 5

Group agreed to meet 3 times a year, the next meeting to be held in June, 2015.  The next meeting is to be held in Dublin to facilitate the majority of attendees.

Carol Anne Hennessy

30^th January, 2015.