If We Can Save Lives at Sea, Why Haven’t We Built the Same System to Save Men From Suicide?

By Steve Whittle, Founder of Tough To Talk

If someone falls into the sea off the British coastline, society doesn't debate whether water is complicated.

We fund the RNLI.

We build lifeboat stations.

We train crews .

We prevent deaths.

It’s structured.

Visible. National.

Now consider this.

Around 10 men die by suicide every single day in the UK.

Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death for men under 50.

Roughly three-quarters of all suicides are male.

We fund rescue at sea as infrastructure.

We fund suicide prevention largely as sentiment.

That is not a criticism of the charities working tirelessly in this space. It is a structural observation.

With the RNLI, we have built a coordinated, visible national safety system around drowning.

We have never built one around the leading cause of death for men under 50.

Why Does the RNLI Command Universal Support?

In 2024 alone, the RNLI launched over 9,000 times and saved 437 lives. They operate 238 lifeboat stations across the UK and Ireland. Their annual expenditure is around £190 million, largely funded by public donations.

But their power is not just financial.

It’s clarity.

• The risk is understood.

• The mission is simple.

• The response is visible.

• The infrastructure is permanent.

No one asks whether someone “deserves” rescue from a rip current.

We treat drowning as a public safety issue.

Suicide Is Also a Public Safety Issue

Male suicide kills far more people each year than drowning.

Yet culturally and structurally, we treat it differently.

Drowning feels accidental.

Suicide feels personal.

The sea is external.

Mental distress gets moralised.

A lifeboat launch is visible and decisive.

Suicide prevention is quiet, relational, and often invisible.

We have normalised a level of male suicide that would be politically intolerable in almost any other category of preventable death.

We describe it as tragic.

We have not yet treated it as preventable at scale.

What I See in the Workplace

I work primarily inside male-dominated industries.

Construction sites. Infrastructure projects. Transport hubs. Frontline environments.

I have trained supervisors who admitted they were terrified to ask a direct question about suicide because they thought they might “make it worse.”

That fear is not infrastructure.

That is a system asking individuals to carry a national problem without the tools to do so.

Many of the men who later enter crisis were not refusing help.

They were silent long before they were suicidal.

If we are serious about prevention, silence is where we must intervene.

What Would an RNLI-Style Prevention Model Look Like?

This is hypothetical.

I am not claiming this is the solution.

But it is more structured than what we currently have.

If we treated male suicide as a national safety priority with the same clarity we apply to coastal rescue, it might include:

1. Visible Prevention Infrastructure

Not hidden services requiring men to self-identify at breaking point.

But embedded, visible prevention capability inside high-risk communities and workplaces.

Just as lifeboat stations are placed where coastal risk is highest, prevention resources would be positioned where male suicide risk is consistently elevated.

2. Standardised, Nationally Recognised Training

RNLI crews train to a clear, trusted standard.

Why is suicide prevention training not embedded as standard practice across male-dominated sectors?

Construction supervisors. Transport managers. Coaches. Veterans’ organisations. Community leaders.

Not replacing clinicians.

Acting earlier.

3. Data-Driven Prevention

The RNLI tracks patterns, incidents, and high-risk areas.

Upstream suicide prevention should do the same, capturing insight from early conversations and interventions to identify trends before crisis escalates.

Prevention intelligence, not guesswork.

4. Sustained National Messaging

The RNLI teaches children to “Float to Live.”

Clear. Repeated. Memorable.

Male suicide prevention messaging is often fragmented and temporary.

A sustained, culturally intelligent campaign aimed specifically at high-risk male groups would look very different from generic mental health awareness.

Why Haven’t We Built This?

Because suicide is complex?

So is the sea.

Because it is uncomfortable?

So is drowning.

Or because we still frame emotional struggle as individual weakness rather than systemic risk?

We have accepted male suicide as tragic.

We have not yet built infrastructure that treats it as preventable at scale.

The Question We Should Be Asking

If 10 people drowned every day in Britain, we would not accept it as inevitable.

We would build more lifeboats.

Male suicide is not inevitable.

It is influenced by silence, stigma, financial pressure, isolation, and cultural norms that discourage early disclosure.

We know this.

The question is whether we are prepared to build a national infrastructure that reflects what we already understand.

Because prevention should not depend on whether a man is brave enough to ask for help at his lowest point.

And we should not continue treating the leading cause of death for men under 50 as something too complex to organise around.

We have done it for the sea.

We can do it for men.

The real question is whether we are willing to build it.

Where Tough To Talk Sits

Tough To Talk operates upstream of crisis.

We are not a helpline. We are not emergency response.

We focus on changing culture early inside male-centric environments before silence becomes suicide.

Our model embeds trained “Tough Talkers” inside organisations. These are trusted, influential peers equipped with recognised suicide prevention and intervention training assured by the Royal Society for Public Health.

They are trained to:

• Challenge stigma.

• Recognise early warning signs.

• Ask direct questions confidently.

• Escalate risk safely and appropriately.

This is structured prevention inside real-world systems.

In recent delivery, we have:

• Trained 219 Tough Talkers.

• Delivered 38 early suicide interventions safely.

• Engaged nearly 6,000 people across major organisations.

We have seen documented prevention outcomes in large-scale infrastructure projects and national organisations.

That is not theory.

It is prevention tested inside complex environments.

I am not saying this is the national solution.

I am saying we have evidence that structured, upstream, culture-first prevention works at organisational level.

The next question is scale.

About the author

Steve Whittle is an award-winning men’s mental health and suicide prevention campaigner and the founder of Tough To Talk. Drawing on lived experience of suicide attempts and bereavement, Steve has become a leading national voice on male suicide prevention, working in male-dominated spaces to challenge stigma and silence.

A certified suicide first aid assessor and tutor, Steve speaks regularly at national conferences and advises organisations across industry, sport, and the emergency services. His work focuses on reducing risk, increasing understanding, and helping men feel able to seek support before the crisis point.