The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has published new guidance for treating people who deliberately harm themselves.
Published in July, the guidelines stress that self-harmers should be treated with the same respect and privacy as any other patient.

The recommendations include giving appropriate training to NHS staff and offering a preliminary psycho-social assessment to everyone who has self-harmed to determine a person’s mental capacity, their level of distress, possible mental illness and the risk of future self-harm or suicide.

In addition, accident and emergency staff should have access to activated charcoal, which prevents the absorption of most poisons by the stomach.

“We need A&E departments to be more alert to the potential risks and prevent the vicious cycle of relief by painful self-harm,” said Sane chief executive Marjorie Wallace.

“As one young woman said: ‘I need to cut myself as I need to breathe.  It is my only release from mental pain’. Like most others, she was simply sent home from hospital, after having received 42 stitches from her self-inflicted injuries and given no follow-up care.”