New guidance has been shared for universities, including contacting close family members, to try to reduce student suicide rates.
Universities UK (UUK) has shared new advice for institutions that students should register a 'trusted contact' when they start studying. Universities are encouraged to get in contact if they have any concerns about the student's mental well-being.
The law currently allows organisations to share personal data, including health reports, in an emergency, and most universities already have policies in place for contacting family members in such situations, even without the student's consent. UUK say universities need to be more proactive when it comes to preventing student suicides.
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Theo Brennan-Hulme, who had Asperger's syndrome and a history of self-harm, died while studying at the University of East Anglia in March 2019. He had given UEA permission to contact his mother with any concerns, his friend and flatmate Callum Dineen, 22, told BBC News, but this did not happen.
"He was reaching out to the university, he was following all the guidance on how he could help his mental health, and he was following all the processes as well as he could have done," Mr Dineen told BBC News. "They could have done better. They could have done a lot better."
The new guidance from UUK aims to give universities more confidence in identifying when to act and contact family members when students are struggling. UEA said it did not comment on individual cases but welcomed the focus on information sharing, adding it had introduced a policy asking students for advance consent to contact their loved ones.
UUK's guidance says staff "should make every reasonable effort to secure consent" but "there are some circumstances in which a university can and should share information with emergency services and with trusted contacts, even where they have not been able to secure consent".
It also asks universities to:
- check in with students and keep their contacts up to date
- give students examples of when they may decide to involve contacts
- produce clear, publicly available policies
- ensure staff are appropriately trained
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 64 students killed themselves in England and Wales in the 2019-20 academic year. Since 2016, the student suicide rate in England and Wales has been significantly lower than among the general population of similar ages, and suicide rates are generally higher in men than women.
But the student rates are only estimates, leading some parents to call for legislation for universities to report the annual number of student suicides. UUK president and University of the West of England vice-chancellor Prof Steve West said universities had a duty of care around health and safety, and equality and diversity.
But he said: "There isn't a legal framework for that for universities, for [their] students, in terms of mental health." UAE and around 30 other universities have now introduced an 'opt-in' policy, which asks students to give the university 'advanced consent' to share information with their contact if they have concerns.
Asked why UUK was not asking all universities to have "opt-in" programmes, Prof West said: "Those students who don't opt in are often the students who are most vulnerable." The UUK guidance is not mandatory and universities cannot make students give "trusted contacts".
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