To ask you too attend a candlelight vigil tomorrow evening in Edinburgh, Bristol or London

[Sophforthe100]

.. for the 100 students every year who take their own lives every year.

The law needs to change so that Universities have a duty of care to their students.

Fine out more: www.forthe100.org.uk/vigil

I'm a very regular Mumsnetter who has name-changed to post this.

So is it just a case of informing parents if the student gives the green light to do so? Would changing the rules around medical confidentiality also apply to non-student under 21s? Or mature students? I don’t see that only applying it to under 21s who are at university is very fair?

It’s tricky to know what this would look like in practice.

I had really bad anxiety and ocd throughout my 20s which started shortly before I started uni (almost 20 years ago!). I really struggled in halls. The porter was really nice and he’d do his best to check in on people he knew were struggling but there was only so much he could do. I saw the uni health service and they were reasonably helpful suggesting medication and referring for counselling. I can’t imagine what else the uni could have done - there’s no way the lecturers would have even known people were in a crisis unless the student disclosed this. Personal tutor maybe - but given a number of students struggle it must be hard for them to know who is at active risk of harm.

sadly a girl killed herself in my old halls (in fact my corridor) when I was in second year. The porter found her. That really effected me as it felt a bit ‘there but for the grace of god’. It turned out the porter had found several students who had died by suicide over the years. It must’ve been pretty traumatic and I wonder if he felt in some way responsible - but he wasn’t a psychiatrist and realistically what else could he have done?

It’s a very difficult topic but I can’t say I ever felt the uni should have been responsible for my mental health. If I told a lecturer I was suicidal I think the most i’d expect is for them to refer me to the uni health centre. However I don’t know what my parents would have felt had I killed myself when at uni- perhaps they would have felt the uni didn’t do enough. I imagine there’s a drive to find someone to ‘blame’ because the situation is so horrific.

Op I'm sorry if you have had first hand experience of a loved one taking their own life.
I'm not sure if I've got this right, but when you refer to a 'duty of care' do you mean that if a student has said they are okay with their parents being informed of a mental health crisis, and the student then informs pastoral care or a lecturer that they are struggling, you would expect pastoral care or the lecturer to get in contact with the parent, so the parent can then get involved? On the face of it that would make sense and seems such a simple thing to implement; the problem is, something so seemingly simple is potentially far more complex.
But I whole heartedly agree we need to raise awareness, de stigmatised, and fund many more mental health services (the fact the government would save a vast amount of money if they put money into this area doesn't seem to compute with the powers that be...but that's for another thread).

I absolutely agree that mental health services are a shambles, but a campaign to fix that should be focusing on the NHS and the government, not universities.

Universities are educational establishments, not healthcare. Our role is to help students who are struggling to complete their programme through adjustments like flexibility with deadlines, smaller exam settings etc - not to treat their mental ill health. If a student is unwell enough that those adjustments aren't enough then they should be taking a leave of absence until their health has sufficiently recovered.

I don’t think my university professors or tutor knew anything about me. I only saw each one for up to 3 hours a week.

How would they would have worked out if I was suicidal?

What I'd be more willing to sign is a requirement that police checks are carried out on students before they are admitted to halls of residence.

I know of at least one case where a uni allowed a known sex offender to live in halls.

How would they would have worked out if I was suicidal?

We would not. And it is not fair to put this burden on us and especially with legal consequences.

We are not trained for this, it is not our job and we are chronically overworked as is. How can we possibly make judgements about students who we rarely see?

When I get emails from students who are suicidal, in one case literally describing the view from the bridge the night before, we of course notify who we can and where possible checks are made.

No one cares about the effect on us by the way.

But I get a couple of hundred emails a week about different things and don't always answer them immediately. Often, I catch up on the weekend. Would I be at risk of legal consequences if I missed an email or did not respond until too late?

It's just unworkable.

Aphrathestorm - I'd second that.

How can we possibly make judgements about students who we rarely see?

You can't. We had suicide in a family. Family members spoke to him few hours before. People knew he wa "bit down" and helped him book a session with therapist.

While I agree that not notifying family when student wanted to was failure of the services, they are often overstretched too.

Agree with pps. This is just pushing blame from lack of NHS support onto uni who should not have these levels of responsibility. They do not usually have actual psychiatrists, of course.
When I spoke with our counselling they asked straight away if I was suicidal and if yes, they eill need to move me to appropriate service with NHS.

It's not overal uni failure, it's few specific service failures with notifications. And I am in doubt if that services are fully equipped anyway with the number of people they see and with them not being trained and qualified (officially) for this

I have every sympathy for those who work in Universities, the vast majority do a brilliant job, and I don't doubt that you are all under enormous pressure Spartacus.

But it is the processes and systems that need to be improved. Edinburgh Uni's own assessment in one tragic case:

"The university’s four-month review found that staff and systems were under-resourced and struggling to cope with an increase in overall student numbers, in particular numbers suffering from and disclosing mental health issues. It raised concerns that Ulvestad had no face-to-face contact with her personal tutor in her final academic year, describing it as “highly irregular”.

"It concluded: “There were opportunities both to respond more holistically to the information Romy actively disclosed about her mental health and wellbeing, and to monitor Romy’s ongoing situation more effectively, therefore allowing her to be identified as a student who was struggling and required additional support.”

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/16/edinburgh-university-admits-failings-after-student-kills-herself-internal-review-support-mental-health

Can I ask why the GP is not held responsible as the uni is?

This was all very sad and I'm familiar with similar cases.

However, I don't agree that the buck stops with the university and I think that the personal tutor system is doing things it was initially never designed to do - including dealing with students with complex issues including mental health-related ones.

I'd like to see universities push back and demand proper services instead of taking on responsibilities and passing these on to staff, who are not trained and whose role it is to teach and not make mental health referrals.

With respect, the parents also admit they should have been more vigilant and aware.

The university’s four-month review found that staff and systems were under-resourced and struggling to cope with an increase in overall student numbers, in particular numbers suffering from and disclosing mental health issues.

So the answer is to impose more responsibility and statutory responsibility on them?

If anything, another reason why using universities as mental health treatment facilities is a bad idea?

There were opportunities both to respond more holistically to the information Romy actively disclosed about her mental health and wellbeing, and to monitor Romy’s ongoing situation more effectively, therefore allowing her to be identified as a student who was struggling and required additional support.

Opportunities but not the resources, basically? You’d be better off campaigning for better NHS provision for MH in young people, with universities only expected to signpost (I think they do this anyway).

That way they’ll be following a proper treatment program, have access to medication, have continuity of care rather than shuttling between GP/uni, and access to MH professionals who deal with more significant MH issues.

Would campaigning for an improved NHS pathway not be a much better aim? And even for their GP to have permission to contact parents if needs be, given they hold all their medical notes anyway and have a much better understanding of medical confidentiality and when it would be appropriate?

I think the answer is for universities to back out from all support offered, and withdraw all of this type of services.

This would unmuddy the water, make sure parents are 100% aware that this is not a place their offspring can go, that they need to go to the NHS

Universities can no longer be blamed if things go wrong

universities can concentrate their time, energy and resources on research and education

In fact, sorry OP but the more I’ve thought about this, the less of a good idea it seems. And it’s actually a little worrying that you intend to impose this level of responsibility on universities and then what - have them prosecuted if a student sadly takes their own lives? I think it actually has the potential to lead to poorer outcomes by muddying the waters of patient confidentiality, taking on students with significant MH issues that they’re simply unable to cope with, and students relying on a much smaller and under equipped service than if they went to their GP. I actually think it has the potential to go badly wrong.

That's a good point.

Maybe the answer is more MH support in unis. I don't know how they'd go about that.

Why not at the GP though?

I guess coz GP surgeries are a bit crap at the moment. (Not their fault they need better funding).

But again yes maybe the answer should be improving the GP services.

I agree with you that making the university legally responsible seems a step too far.

I totally agree with this. By doing a sort of drip here and there it does completely muddy the waters. The patheway for MH treatment in the UK is via the GP and MH teams. There shouldnt be any confusion about this

It says in article she went to GP. It would be logocally assumption she kept going there or at least went more than once.

Why is the gp not accountable as uni? All are under pressures.

I agree with everyone, the best would be to campaign for better MH services with NHS. Random uni staff shouldn't be expected to deal with suicidal students or staff and be held accountable for the sad outcomes.

But signposting could be worked on. Again tho. Signposting to what since everything is under pressure

I agree with this.

As another PP has mentioned, the personal tutor system was never intended to support students with complex mental health needs. It was intended to provide the student with someone who has academic oversight of their progress over the course of the degree and who can offer advice on academic matters. Academics are not mental health professionals, and there is a high level of poor mental health within the profession itself.

Universities have put significant funds into student mental health support in the absence of a functioning NHS. That was a largely voluntary act (and pushed for by academics, amongst others). But if the logical progression of this is to make them legally liable for suicide, then they will understandably pull back from offering these services and re-draw and insist upon their boundaries as fundamentally research and teaching institutions.

GPs, and all medical professionals, already have a duty of care to their patients.

Universities have a legal duty of care to their staff. They do not have a legal duty of care to their students.

We want this issues to be properly debated in parliament, that's the point of the petition.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/622847

So why is everyone going after unies and not the gps these students are visiting.
What is the rationale.

OP I'm sorry that there have been so many insensitive and deliberately obtuse posts on this thread.

Whilst I'm sure that this isn't a simple subject a little compassion and thought wouldn't go amiss.

Sometimes it seems people are hellbent on disagreeing in a thoughtless way rather than being constructive.

This would unmuddy the water, make sure parents are 100% aware that this is not a place their offspring can go, that they need to go to the NHS

I totally agree.

I think it actually has the potential to lead to poorer outcomes by muddying the waters of patient confidentiality,

Many of the students I speak with have mental health issues that partly stem from their family life/parents. These include being pressured to do courses they do not want to do or to succeed academically when they are out of their depth. Sometimes parents don't respect the choice to go to university. Sometimes they don't accept their DC's sexuality or choices around religion. Sometimes parents are simply abusive or toxic in other ways.

These are not parents who should be informed of issues concerning their adult children unless very explicit and uncoerced consent is given.

But most of all it muddies the water concerning consent and confidentiality.