Official Statistics

Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance (nRTSSS) for England: data to January 2026

Published 30 April 2026

Applies to England

This statistical bulletin contains sensitive content which refers to details on deaths by suspected suicide.

If you are struggling to cope, please call the Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and the Republic of Ireland) or contact other sources of support, such as those listed on the NHS help for suicidal thoughts webpage. Support is available around the clock, every day of the year, providing a safe place for you, whoever you are and however you are feeling.

Any onward reporting of this data should consider following the Samaritans’ media guidelines on the reporting of suicide because of the potentially damaging consequences of irresponsible reporting. In particular, the guidelines advise on terminology and include links to sources of support for anyone affected by the themes in this report.

Main findings

This statistical bulletin presents data from January 2024 to January 2026. It shows that:

• there is no statistically significant difference between the suspected suicide directly standardised rate (DSR) in January 2026 (9.8 deaths per 100,000), compared to December 2025 (9.7 per 100,000) or November 2025 (9.9 per 100,000)
• the suspected suicide rate in January 2026 for males (15.0 per 100,000) remains higher than females (5.1 per 100,000)
• the age group with the highest rate of suspected suicide in January 2026 remains those aged 45 to 64 (12.9 per 100,000), followed by people aged 25 to 44, then those aged 65 and over, with the lowest rate in those aged 10 to 24 (4.0 per 100,000) - there is no statistically significant change compared to recent months across these age groups
• the most common method type for deaths by suspected suicide in the latest quarter (October to December 2025) remains hanging, suffocation and strangulation (53.6%), followed by poisoning (22.2%), jumping or lying in front of a moving object (7.5%), fall and fracture (5.9%), sharp object (3.5%) and drowning (3.2%) - other or unknown (4.0%)

Introduction

This statistical bulletin is based on suspected suicides reported by date of death by local police. It complements, but does not replace, officially registered deaths by suicide (certified by a coroner) reported by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). ONS also present some suicide statistics based on date of occurrence, but these are less up-to-date than nRTSSS reporting.

The purpose of this statistical bulletin is to provide an early warning system for indications of changes in trends in suicide through analysis of data on suspected suicide. This data can inform and enable a more timely and targeted prevention response to changing patterns in suspected suicides at a local and national level.

This statistical bulletin draws upon suspected suicide data from across England supplied by police force areas (PFAs) submitting to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Suicide Prevention Portfolio. The designation ‘suspected suicide’ is provided by the police. The term is used because the cause of death has not yet been confirmed by coroner’s inquest. When sudden and unexpected death occurs, the suspected cause of death is allocated by the attending police officer. There is then a review, based on guidance from NPCC, before a death is reported as a suspected suicide.

This bulletin presents data at England level. It includes rates of death by suspected suicide and breaks the data down by age group and sex. This data is presented as monthly DSRs for the most recent available 25 months. This enables a comparison of the latest months with the same month in previous years.

The bulletin also includes suspected suicide method, grouped by category. This too has not been confirmed by coroner’s inquest and should be viewed as provisional. This data is shown as proportions of all suspected suicides and is presented as a snapshot figure for the latest available quarter.  

The data outputs from the nRTSSS work programme are primarily for national and local organisations working on suicide prevention.

About these statistics

To enhance understanding of this bulletin, some important terms and aspects of the work are explained below. For further details on how these terms are defined and used, and on how results were generated, see the accompanying methodology document.

Data presented in this bulletin is based on month and year of death occurrence, which allows monitoring of monthly and seasonal variation.  

For records from a PFA to be included, there must be a submission for that month, and it must meet the ‘observed compared to expected’ criteria. This means the number of deaths by suspected suicide are comparable (within a tolerance range) with the number that would be expected, based on recent deaths by suicide for that area (as collected by ONS). These inclusion criteria are used for the purpose of calculating population-based statistics only.

The monthly data is presented as DSRs to enable comparison between groups and over time while accounting for differences in the age structure of populations. Due to relatively small numbers, identified trends in deaths may not have statistical significance. Within this bulletin, where a change is viewed as potentially important, comments are included in the text accompanying the figure. To help interpretation of monthly rates, a range is included based on upper and lower confidence intervals (CIs) for a 6-month rolling DSR (explained in the methodology document).

Contributing PFAs change between months with associated variation in the population base. This should be considered when interpreting the changes over time presented in figures 1 to 7. This is recognised in reporting by showing the trend with a dotted rather than solid line. Further details to help with interpretation of trends are available in the ‘Monthly and quarterly reporting explained’ section of this bulletin and the accompanying methodology document.     

Data about method of suspected suicide is presented by quarter, because the number of method groups would lead to small number suppression if presented monthly. All records received are included in quarterly presentation.

Changes in reporting

This report uses the latest available mid-year population estimates (2024), see the accompanying methodology document. Rates presented from June 2025 onwards are calculated using this larger population. This contributed to fewer PFAs being included in DSR reporting for those months, as they did not meet the quality criteria outlined above.

Reporting for June 2025 onwards is therefore based on around 60% of England’s population, compared to around 80% for the months prior to that. This needs to be considered when viewing these monthly rates. This analysis suggests this did not introduce an additional bias and the estimates remain indicative of suspected suicide rates in England.

Not all suicides are identified by police, and not all areas contribute to this report. Therefore the estimates provide an indication of suicide rates, but the numbers should be treated with caution.

Publication updates

This statistical bulletin is published every 3 months. Each new publication includes data for the most recent time period and any delayed records for previously reported months.

The April 2026 report includes:

• new monthly suspected suicide rates for November 2025 to January 2026
• additional data for the months prior to November 2025, due to delayed submissions by some PFAs
• recalculated monthly rates for the months affected by delayed submissions
• new data on proportions by method type for quarter 4 (October to December) 2025

The data tables associated with this report are provided as an accessible spreadsheet.

Further analysis

Data in this section is presented for persons aged 10 and over.

Monthly rates

This section presents monthly rates of death by suspected suicide in England for the period January 2024 to January 2026. The rates are presented as DSRs per 100,000 population.

Monthly rates are presented for:

• persons
• sex as female or male
• age groups as follows:
• 10 to 24 years
• 25 to 44 years
• 45 to 64 years
• 65 years and over

Between January 2024 and January 2026, out of 8,137 deaths by suspected suicide:

• 6,116 (75.2%) were in males
• 2,021 (24.8%) in females
• 826 (10.2%) in people aged 10 to 24
• 2,932 (36.0%) in people aged 25 to 44
• 3,165 (38.9%) in people aged 45 to 64
• 1,214 (14.9%) in people aged 65 and over

In January 2026, out of 234 deaths:

• 172 (73.5%) were in males
• 62 (26.5%) in females
• 19 (8.1%) in people aged 10 to 24
• 84 (35.9%) in people aged 25 to 44
• 88 (37.6%) in people aged 45 to 64
• 43 (18.4%) in people aged 65 and over

Figure 1: suspected suicide rates in England, persons, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 1 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for November 2025 (9.9 deaths per 100,000 population) followed by January 2026 (9.8) and December 2025 (9.7)
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in the previous years, January is lower in 2026 than in 2024 and 2025, whereas both November and December 2025 are similar to 2024 - the difference is only statistically significant between January 2026 and January 2024
• within the reporting period, January 2024 (12.6) has the highest rate followed by July 2025 (12.3)

This data is available in table 1 of the accompanying data tables on the Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Figure 2: suspected suicide rates in England, males, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 2 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for November 2025 (16.0 deaths per 100,000 males) followed by December 2025 (15.1) and January 2026 (15.0)
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in the previous years, January is lower in 2026 than in 2024 and 2025, whereas both November and December 2025 have the same rates as 2024 - these differences are not statistically significant
• within the reporting period, rates are highest in July 2025 (19.1), followed by January 2024 (19.0) and January 2025 (18.5)

This data is available in table 2 of the accompanying data tables on the Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Figure 3: suspected suicide rates in England, females, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 3 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for January 2026 (5.1 deaths per 100,000 females) followed by December 2025 (4.6) and November 2025 (4.3)
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in the previous years, January 2026 has the same rate as 2025 but is lower than 2024, December 2025 is similar to 2024, and November 2025 is lower than 2024 - these differences are not statistically significant
• within the reporting period, rates are highest in January 2024 (6.6), followed by August 2025 (6.3)

This data is available in table 3 of the accompanying data tables on the  Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Figure 4: suspected suicide rates in England, persons aged 10 to 24, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 4 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for December 2025 (5.2 deaths per 100,000 population), followed by November 2025 (4.2) and January 2026 (4.0)
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in previous years, January 2026 is similar to 2025 but lower than 2024, December 2025 is higher than 2024, and November 2025 is lower than 2024 - these differences are not statistically significant
• within the reporting period, rates are highest in March 2025 (7.4), followed by January 2024 (7.3)

This data is available in table 4 of the accompanying data tables on the  Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Figure 5: suspected suicide rates in England, persons aged 25 to 44, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 5 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for December 2025 (12.5 deaths per 100,000 population), followed by January 2026 (11.5) and November 2025 (9.4)
• the rate for November 2025 is the lowest in the reporting period, although it is only significantly different to January 2024
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in previous years, January 2026 is lower than 2025 and 2024, December 2025 is similar to 2024, and November 2025 is lower than 2024 - these differences are not statistically significant
• the highest rates in the reporting period are in January 2024 (15.1), followed by September 2024 (14.5) and July 2025 (14.3)
• the 6-month DSR range shows a decreasing trend in the early months of the period

This data is available in table 5 of the accompanying data tables on the  Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Figure 6: suspected suicide rates in England, persons aged 45 to 64, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 6 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for November 2025 (14.1 deaths per 100,000 population), followed by January 2026 (12.9) and December 2025 (11.8)
• the rate for December 2025 is the second lowest in the reporting period - however, the rate is not significantly different to other months
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in the previous years, January 2026 is lower than 2025 and 2024, December 2025 is higher than 2024, and November 2025 is similar to 2024 - these differences are not statistically significant
• within the reporting period, rates are highest in July 2025 (16.9), followed by January 2025 and September 2025 (both 16.5), and January 2024 (16.4)

This data is available in table 6 of the accompanying data tables on the  Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Figure 7: suspected suicide rates in England, persons aged 65 and over, January 2024 to January 2026

Source: NPCC.

Figure 7 shows that:

• of the 3 months added to reporting, the highest rate is for November 2025 (9.8 deaths per 100,000 population), followed by January 2026 (8.5) and December 2025 (6.8)
• the rate for November 2025 is the highest rate in the reporting period - however, the rate is not significantly different to other months
• when comparing the most recent 3 months to the same period in the previous years, January 2026 is similar to 2025 and 2024, December 2025 is similar to 2024, whereas November 2025 is higher than 2024
• the highest rates in the reporting period are in November 2025 (9.8), followed by July 2024 (9.0) and January 2024 (8.8)

This data is available in table 7 of the accompanying data tables on the  Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Method of death by suspected suicide

This section of the bulletin presents quarterly proportions of deaths by suspected suicide in England by method group for quarter 4 (Q4) 2025 covering October, November and December.

In Q4 2025, there were 1,200 suspected suicides, with the following numbers recorded for each method group:

• hanging, suffocation and strangulation (651 deaths)
• poisoning (270 deaths)
• jumping or lying in front of a moving object (91 deaths)
• fall and fracture (72 deaths)
• other or unknown (49 deaths)
• sharp object (42 deaths)
• drowning (39 deaths)

Please note that for some suspected suicides more than one method is recorded.

Figure 8: proportion of deaths by suspected suicide method group in England, persons, Q4 2025

Source: NPCC.

Figure 8 shows that for Q4 2025:

• hanging, suffocation and strangulation is the most common method type, accounting for more than half of all deaths (53.6%) - the proportion for the latest quarter is slightly lower than the previous quarter (Q3, 2025)
• the second highest method type is poisoning (22.2%), followed by jumping or lying in front of a moving object (7.5%), which increased from 5.0% in the previous quarter (Q3, 2025)
• sharp object (3.5%) and drowning (3.2%) show an increase from the previous quarter (Q3, 2025), where they were 2.9% and 2.1% respectively

The number of deaths by method group are available in table 8 of the accompanying data tables on the  Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026 page.

Monthly and quarterly reporting explained

Although from the same data source, the basis for monthly rates and quarterly proportions in this bulletin are different. This reflects data quality and approach to data presentation.

Monthly reporting of suspected suicide rates does not use all records received. Out of 39 PFAs in England some are excluded following a data completeness assessment. Table 1 provides detail of the basis for monthly rates reporting.

Table 1: basis for monthly rates reporting, January 2024 to January 2026

	January 2026	January 2024 to December 2025, lowest	January 2024 to December 2025, highest
Number of PFAs included	23	22	32
Percentage of England’s population aged 10 and over	55	55	87
Number of records received	388	380	515
Number of records included	234	233	439

The excluded PFAs, and the populations within them, may affect the monthly rates. To help understand this, excluded PFAs are categorised as having low, medium or high suicide rates based on historical data. Knowing this helps understand if monthly rates are broadly representative of England.

Lower population coverage can result in potential bias in the rates. For January 2026, out of 44.8% of England’s population excluded from reporting, 15.2% were categorised as low, 14.8% as medium and 14.7% as high. In this instance, the distribution of the excluded PFAs does not indicate a bias to the data.

The accompanying data tables on the Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance for England: data to January 2026, include further detail for each reporting month on:

• the number of suspected suicide records included
• proportions of England’s population covered
• excluded populations by low, medium and high category

Quarterly proportion reporting is based on all records received, but it is not based on all suspected suicide cases in England during the period. This is due to delayed reporting or under reporting by some PFAs.

Acknowledgements

This report draws upon data from across England supplied by local PFAs submitting to NPCC. Without their collaboration this work would not have been possible.

This work is supported and enhanced by continuing feedback and input from:

• members of the nRTSSS System Leadership Group
• local suicide prevention teams and PFAs

The responsible statistician is the Head of Intelligence, Mental Health Intelligence Team, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID)

The product leads are the:

• Programme Lead, Mental Health Intelligence Team, OHID
• Deputy Director, Clinical Epidemiology, OHID

This report complies with: 

• the Samaritans’ media guidelines for reporting suicide
• the Code of Practice for Statistics

If you have any questions relating to this publication, contact mhit@dhsc.gov.uk.