A HERALD INVESTIGATION

AN EVALUATION of Australia's main suicide prevention program - which found there was little evidence the strategy had reduced rates of suicide and self harm - has been kept secret for three years, stalling much needed national reforms.

The 2006 evaluation reveals the Howard government was urged to review the National Suicide Prevention Strategy to ensure that funds were better targeted to those in greatest need. ''The current goals and objectives … are too broad to provide sufficient guidance,'' it concluded.

And while the national program floundered, suicide rates remained at historically high levels. The Herald revealed yesterday that the national suicide statistics had been undercounted, and the toll could be as high as 3000 a year, rather than the 1800 reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, without any corresponding increase in funding to prevent further deaths.

The Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, said the Government was working with the Australian Suicide Prevention Advisory Council to develop ways to improve the data and respond to the needs of people at risk. ''I'm concerned by these reports,'' Ms Roxon said.

To make progress, access to quality mental health services must be improved and structures developed to co-ordinate a new national response, said John Mendoza, the chairman of the Federal Government's National Advisory Council on Mental Health.

''We have seen our governments … implement an assertive response to swine flu [and] now we have had 121 deaths since the outbreak and … 460 people are … in hospital from H1N1.

''In the same period we have had at least 10 times the number of suicides and … 20,000 hospital admissions for self-harm. This is the scale of the problem, and it's time we addressed it.''

Training GPs and other health care providers in recognising the warning signs for self harm and suicide, as well as reducing access to the means of suicide and investing in self-help services would go a long way to reducing risk, Professor Mendoza said.

The chairman of Suicide Prevention Australia, Michael Dudley, said: ''We have absolute evidence that putting barriers around jumping points makes a huge difference - people do not automatically go and try something else, and it is the same with reducing access to firearms, medications and other methods.

''Maintaining a social connection can make a difference - we should be following people … after they have had contact with health services, because we know they are very much at risk.''

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