The 10th September is World Suicide Prevention Day, a time to raise awareness, challenge stigma and remind ourselves that support, compassion and connection can save lives. For the nursing workforce, this day carries particular significance.

As nurses, nursing support workers and students, we spend our careers caring for others during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. Yet the evidence increasingly tells us that many within our own profession are struggling, often in silence.

As health and safety representatives, we know that protecting workers is about far more than preventing slips, trips and falls. It is also about protecting psychological health and creating workplaces where people feel safe, valued, respected and able to ask for help.

Suicide Is a Workplace Issue Health and Safety Issue

Suicide and suicidal thoughts are complex and can never be attributed to a single cause. Personal circumstances, physical health, financial pressures and wider social factors all play a role.However, workplaces matter.

Work can be a source of support, purpose and connection. Equally, poor workplace cultures, excessive pressure, bullying, unsafe staffing levels and poor management practices can increase distress and worsen an already difficult situation.

As health and safety representatives, we have a responsibility to ensure that employers recognise that psychological safety is every bit as important as physical safety.  Psychological safety must be treated with the same importance as physical safety.

Last year the RCN contributed to the development of the British Standards Institution (BSI) BS 30480:2025 (Suicide and the Workplace – Intervention, Prevention and Support for People Affected by Suicide – Guide).  This recognises that workplaces have an important role to play in prevention, intervention and support. 

The standard is the UK's first dedicated workplace framework on suicide and provides guidance for organisations on creating environments where people feel safe to seek help and discuss concerns.

The evidence we cannot ignore

The Royal College of Nursing's 2024 report, Understanding the factors underpinning suicidal ideation amongst the UK nursing workforce from 2022 to 2024, provides a sobering insight into the challenges facing nursing staff today. The findings should act as a call to action for employers, policymakers, trade unions, workplace leaders. 

The RCN's analysis of member contacts between February 2022 and February 2024 identified 392 enquiries where members expressed concerns related to suicide, self-harm or feeling suicidal. 

Perhaps most worrying is the trend. In 2022, the RCN recorded an average of around 10 members each month expressing suicidal ideation. By the final six months of the reporting period, this had increased to an average of 27 members per month.

The number of high-risk cases requiring safeguarding intervention increased by more than 200%.

One message from the report is crystal clear.

Many of the pressures contributing to poor mental health are workplace issues and workplace issues require workplace solutions.

Among members who sought counselling support and reported suicidal ideation, 69% identified work or academic pressures as a factor in seeking help.

The most common workplace concerns included:

• Excessive workload
• Formal proceedings and investigations
• Difficult working relationships
• Bullying and harassment
• Work-life balance pressures
• Poor working conditions

What stands out is that workplace pressures were reported significantly more often than traumatic incidents.

These findings reinforce what many reps hear every day from members. Staff are exhausted. They are carrying unsafe workloads. Many feel unsupported during investigations or formal processes. Others experience bullying, incivility or cultures where they feel unable to speak up.

The Importance of Compassionate Leadership

One of the strongest themes emerging from the report is not simply the existence of workplace stress, but the need for workplaces to respond differently.

The RCN identified three core needs repeatedly arising in member experiences:

• The need for informed understanding.
• The need for kindness and compassion.
• The need for clear and timely communication. 

Members frequently described feeling vulnerable, isolated and confused, particularly during periods of sickness absence, bereavement, workplace investigations or significant life events. 

The report concludes that supportive management, compassionate leadership and proactive communication can make a significant difference to how individuals experience these situations. 

We know that a psychologically safe workplace is one where staff feel able to raise concerns, admit mistakes, seek support and speak openly without fear of blame, ridicule or punishment. These are not simply wellbeing issues. They are workplace safety issues.

What Can We Do?

World Suicide Prevention Day reminds us that suicide prevention is everyone's business.

The RCN is calling for:

• Better suicide awareness and prevention training.
• More compassionate workplace cultures.
• Improved support for staff undergoing formal processes.
• Earlier intervention when staff experience distress.
• Greater accountability for workplace factors contributing to poor mental health.

Further research into suicide and suicidal ideation within the nursing workforce. 

Health and safety representatives can take action by:

• Raising work-related stress as a health and safety issue at partnership and safety committee meetings.
• Challenging unsafe staffing levels and excessive workloads through existing reporting and escalation processes.
• Ensuring psychosocial risks are properly assessed alongside physical workplace risks.
• Challenging bullying, harassment and discrimination wherever they occur.
• Seeking assurance that staff affected by investigations, disciplinary procedures or grievances are appropriately supported.
• Promoting psychologically safe workplace cultures.
• Signposting members to appropriate wellbeing and counselling support.
• Encouraging open conversations about mental health and suicide without stigma.
• Ensuring staff understand their rights and available support during formal procedures.
• Holding employers accountable for their legal duty to protect both physical and psychological health

This World Suicide Prevention Day, we encourage every Health and Safety Representative to speak with members about workplace stress, review local concerns, raise issues through established health and safety structures, and ensure psychological wellbeing remains firmly on the agenda.

Every Conversation Matters

World Suicide Prevention Day is an opportunity to reflect on how we care for one another. We may not always know what someone is carrying, but we can all contribute to a culture where people feel able to speak, ask for help and know that they will be treated with compassion.

As health and safety representatives, our message is clear: no member should feel they are facing these challenges alone. Creating safer workplaces means addressing both physical and psychological risks, challenging harmful workplace cultures and ensuring every nursing professional feels valued, supported and safe.

Because behind every statistic is a colleague, a friend, a family member, and a person whose life matters.
 
If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available.

Samaritans: Call 116 123 free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or visit www.samaritans.org.

Information about RCN counselling and wellbeing support is available through the RCN Member Support Services webpage. 

Sources

• Royal College of Nursing, World Suicide Prevention Day: Raising Awareness Within and Across Nursing.
• BSI, BS 30480:2025 Suicide and the Workplace. 
• Samaritans, World Suicide Prevention Day Campaign.