It’s time for a legislative response to student suicide

Every student suicide represents a profound tragedy, leaving grieving families and loved ones grappling with unanswered questions as they come to terms with their devastating loss.

It also underscores the challenges faced by the higher education sector in responding to and preventing such heartbreaking events.

According to the latest government data, the proportion of home students disclosing a mental health condition to their university rose from under 1 per cent in 2010/11 to 5.7 per cent in 2021/22.

Despite growing awareness of the mental health challenges faced by young people in HE, the sector continues to struggle with preventing suicides and adequately supporting bereaved families.

In the academic year ending 2020, the Office for National Statistics reported a suicide rate of 3.0 deaths per 100,000 higher education students, equating to 64 lives lost. These preventable tragedies demand urgent systemic change, requiring collective action and a consistent approach across institutions.

By implementing just three key legal reforms, we could shape a more effective response to student suicide across the UK.

In memory of Mared Thomas Foulkes

On 8 July 2020, Mared Thomas Foulkes, a conscientious and high-achieving second-year student at Cardiff University, died by suicide after receiving incorrect exam results that led her to believe she had failed.

The misleading and ambiguous information on her transcript suggested she could not progress into her third year, despite not reflecting her true academic performance.

Following the inquest into Mared’s death, her family, supported by a team of lawyers including myself, produced a report highlighting the urgent need for legal reform to avoid such preventable tragedies.

This was recently put to the Welsh Government with the hope it will become a wholesale reform across the UK, so that students and families can benefit from it no matter where the student studies.

Opt-out consent for welfare contact

Recognising that students in HE are adults, parents or carers are not typically informed about the welfare and wellbeing of their child due to confidentiality. The Bristol Consent Model, adopted by some institutions, allows students to give their explicit consent for universities to exchange information with an emergency contact in case of mental health crises or other urgent welfare concerns.

This opt-in model empowers students to decide whether their emergency contact should be notified if they are in distress, balancing student autonomy with the need for safeguarding.

England and Wales’ opt-out organ donation system demonstrates the potential for reframing consent models to promote societal wellbeing. Applying this principle to student welfare, universities could adopt an opt-out system for contacting a nominated individual when grave concerns about a student’s wellbeing arise.

A legislative approach to this model would ensure carefully crafted and consistently-applied criteria where this model could be invoked, so as to adequately balance the respect for a student’s privacy and the concern for their welfare. This would involve ensuring students are well-informed about what they consent to, maintaining safeguards to protect privacy and establishing a transparent framework for when and how emergency contacts would be notified.

Currently, universities are rightly hesitant to breach confidentiality, even in critical situations, for fear of legal repercussions. An opt-out model, with clear safeguards to protect student autonomy, could empower institutions to act decisively and proactively in moments of crisis, providing a vital support network when students are most vulnerable, while maintaining the delicate balance between privacy and protection.

A statutory duty of candour

When a student suicide occurs, families often find themselves navigating an opaque and disjointed system, which only compounds their grief. Confidentiality laws prevent universities from disclosing crucial information about the student’s time at the institution, such as access to support services and the guidance they received.

In recent years, Public Health England and Public Health Wales have both introduced a health and social care statutory duty of candour for health providers, mandating openness and accountability when things go wrong. A similar approach for higher education institutions across the UK could transform the way student suicides are handled.

Introducing a statutory duty of candour would ensure that universities are transparent about the circumstances surrounding such incidents. This would foster trust, help to reduce the likelihood of bereaved families becoming secondary victims and provide an opportunity for the institutions to learn from these tragedies.

Such a reform could standardise institutional responses, fostering a culture of accountability that prioritises learning and prevention over defensiveness.

Oversight of prevention of future deaths reports

Prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports, issued by coroners following student suicides, frequently highlight systemic failures within universities, such as gaps in mental health support, communication breakdowns or inadequate response to warning signs. However, the impact of these reports is often limited, as they typically result in siloed responses within the individual institutions involved.

Without a coordinated approach, the lessons learned from one case may not benefit the sector as a whole, leaving other students and institutions vulnerable to similar, if not the same, risks.

A centralised body would be in a unique position to facilitate collective institutional learning, drive the implementation of preventative measures, monitor their effectiveness and ensure that critical changes to policies and practices are consistently applied across all universities.

This would foster a culture of continuous improvement and sector-wide accountability, where the focus shifts from individual institutional responses to a coordinated national strategy to prevent student suicides. This centralised approach would bridge current gaps in practices – ultimately, saving lives.

Enhancing information-sharing frameworks

Beyond legislative reforms, universities must address the fragmentation of academic, pastoral and wellbeing support systems. Numerous PFD reports highlight how students “fall through the cracks” due to inadequate communication between these functions, despite the best efforts and dedication of individual academic and professional services staff.

Institutions should adopt integrated systems that allow staff to share and act on welfare concerns seamlessly. This shift requires cultural as well as structural change, emphasising collaboration over compartmentalisation to support at-risk students effectively.

The proposed reforms offer a pivotal opportunity to enact legal and institutional change that can save lives and better support grieving families. However, these changes require not only recognition but also a collective commitment from lawmakers, policymakers, higher education institutions and the wider academic community.

The reforms – focusing on an opt-out consent model for student welfare, a statutory duty of candour and a centralised body to coordinate prevention of future deaths reports – are essential for addressing the crisis facing our sector.

Currently, universities operate in isolation, limiting their capacity to address this widespread issue effectively. This piecemeal approach, while well-intentioned, cannot adequately address the scale of the problem. Legislative action is the only way to foster a unified, proactive approach.

If reforms are passed, it could lead the way in creating a legislative framework that ensures greater accountability and the meaningful promotion of student wellbeing across the UK, setting a nationwide standard for how universities respond to mental health crises and suicides.

Action is needed now. The proposed reforms must become more than abstract ideas – they must be enshrined in legislation so that we can begin to stem the tide of preventable student suicides. Only through comprehensive legal reform can we create a safer, more supportive environment for all students, ensuring that no student slips through the cracks.