Health
Why suicide data can lead us astray
It’s easy to misunderstand the data on suicides in England and Wales—especially when it comes to long-term comparisons or recent trends. Read
Analysis
Mental health
Fact checks covering mental health service provisioning, self harm, suicide, anxiety and depression
Health
It’s misleading to say 100 studies were not included in the Cass Review
The review on youth gender medicine did consider all the relevant studies, although almost all were assessed to provide only low- or moderate-quality evidence. Read
Fact checks
Health
A ministerial mistake is on the Parliamentary record—but was it due to an editing mix-up?
Comments about children’s mental health services from the health secretary Victoria Atkins have been changed in Hansard to make them clearer—but also clearly not correct. Read
Fact checks
Health
Age UK did not say that elderly suicides rose during lockdown
A Telegraph article reported comments made during the Covid Inquiry, which inaccurately described the content of Age UK’s witness statement. Read
Fact checks
Health
A patient did not wait in A&E for 36 days
FOI information obtained by Labour contained errors, which made it appear that a patient had waited continuously in A&E when in fact they left the hospital and returned the following month. Read
Fact checks
Health
The suicide rate may not have been rising in recent years
Sir Keir Starmer claimed the suicide rate is “going up”, based on a rise since 2007. But data for the last few years gives a mixed picture. Read
Fact checks
Health
Sunday Express misinterprets suicide data
We do not yet know whether suicides in young people rose in 2021. Suicide registrations did rise, but this may have been caused by delays earlier in the pandemic. Read
Fact checks
Economy, Business & Finance
Child self-harm numbers in the Guardian, Mirror and Independent don’t reflect survey’s actual findings
About 3% of parents taking part in a survey said their children had begun to self-harm in response to the cost of living crisis. Read
Fact checks
Education
Reports that ‘most teachers’ are suffering from depression are based on a self-selecting survey
The data comes from members of the NASUWT teaching union who chose to complete its survey, so it can’t reliably tell us about the wellbeing of teachers as a whole. Read
Fact checks
Health
New figures on healthcare workers' suicides should be treated with caution
Most of the suicides registered in the first half of 2020 occurred in previous years. Read
Fact checks
