The death of any member of the policing family is a tragedy, and its effects ripple far beyond those closest to the person - across teams, friendships and the wider service. This guidance is here to help forces do everything they can to keep their people safe.
About the guidance
Staying safe from suicide: Principles, standards and guidance for the police in England and Wales sets out a holistic approach to suicide prevention and establishes clear standards for safety assessments across policing.
Written for senior police leaders, wellbeing leads and occupational health services, it brings together evidence-based principles, practical standards and a tiered suicide risk management plan. Forces can use it to audit their current approach against the national action plan, and to assess whether their risk management arrangements are fit for purpose.
It forms part of the wider NPWS compendium on suicide prevention and postvention, published in support of the workforce health and wellbeing strategy and the Workforce Prioritisation Guidance.
Everyone has a part to play
Suicide prevention is a shared responsibility - not something that sits with one person or one department. The people best placed to notice when a colleague is struggling are often those around them every day.
Our 2025 national wellbeing survey bears this out: when asked where they would turn for support, 65% of respondents said they would go to their manager and 58% to a colleague, while only 32% would contact occupational health or a wellbeing team. This tells us how important it is that everyone in policing understands their role in keeping people safe - and feels confident to have the conversation.
One of the most persistent myths about suicide is that asking someone about it makes things worse. It doesn't. Talking helps. This guidance, alongside resources from Samaritans and the Zero Suicide Alliance, supports everyone in policing to talk about suicide safely and to respond with compassion.
A person-centred approach
At the heart of the guidance is the biopsychosocial approach - a holistic way of understanding risk that considers the whole person and their circumstances, rather than relying on tick-box risk scores.
Suicide risk is rarely fixed. It rises and falls over time, and it is shaped by a complex mix of personal, relational and work-related factors. In line with national best practice from NICE and NHS England, the guidance moves away from predicting risk through stratification, and towards collaborative, continual assessment and safety planning that puts the individual at the centre.
How it fits with our wider work
This guidance does not stand alone. It builds on the foundations already in place across policing - the national suicide action plan, the suicide prevention consensus statement, the postvention toolkit developed with Samaritans, and the Mental Health Crisis Line - and sits within the Workforce Prioritisation Guidance, where suicide prevention and postvention is one of six priority areas.
It is also directly linked to the priorities set out in the Police Reform White Paper, which named suicide prevention as one of six priority areas for mandatory wellbeing standards and identified NPWS as a national partner. As forces work through what reform means for them, this guidance offers a consistent, evidence-based framework to support them.
Download the guidance
The full guidance document is available to download for those working in police forces in England and Wales. You will need an Oscar Kilo account to access. Please make sure you are logged in for access to be granted.
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