Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 5 November 2019.
Can I thank Lynne Neagle for that supplementary question, and to welcome the formation of the cross-party group on this really important subject? She is right to say that we are committed to developing a national postvention bereavement pathway here in Wales. And this is to be a key priority for the new national lead on suicide prevention, and the three regional workers who will sit alongside the national lead, to make sure that we are able to develop a system in which the help that is already there for people who find themselves bereaved by suicide is not passively available to them and that does not rely on them going out to find the help that is there, but that the help that is available is organised in a way that makes that help actively available to people who find themselves in this position, and finds its way to them not once, but repeatedly over the period in which bereavement will be taking place. Because we know that people who are in that terrible position of suffering a bereavement through suicide are often simply not in a position themselves to go making the first move to get the help that they need. And even sometimes when help comes to them, it may be the wrong moment—it may not be the moment where they are able to take advantage of the help that is offered. So, we need a postvention pathway that is active in taking that help to those individuals and making sure that they are aware of what's available to them, and taking that help is made as easy as possible. And that is absolutely illustrated in the final point that Lynne Neagle made—that that way of doing things is drawn directly from the lived experience of people who have found themselves in this awful position. And we're lucky that they have been willing to contribute that experience to us in Wales, to help with the development of the postvention bereavement pathway.