Why Tough To Talk Is Supporting Philip Pirie's Campaign to Reduce the Stigma of Suicide
- Jun 10
- 3 min read
By Steve Whittle, Founder of Tough To Talk
At Tough To Talk, we are proud to support Philip Pirie's campaign calling on the Government to fund a national public health campaign to reduce the stigma of suicide.
We believe this is one of the most important suicide prevention conversations taking place in the UK today.
Every year, thousands of people die by suicide. Behind every death are families, friends, colleagues and communities left trying to understand what happened and whether something could have been done differently.
One of the greatest barriers to prevention remains stigma.
Stigma keeps people silent.
It creates shame around suicidal thoughts.
It stops people asking for help.
It stops families asking difficult questions.
It leaves friends, colleagues and communities unsure whether it is safe to start a conversation.
Philip's proposal identifies a simple but powerful truth: while successive governments have recognised the need to reduce the stigma of suicide, there has never been a sustained, government-led public health campaign dedicated to achieving it.
For decades, public health campaigns have helped change attitudes and behaviours around smoking, drink driving, HIV/AIDS and other major public health challenges. Through consistent national messaging, they helped create cultural change.
Suicide deserves the same level of ambition.
At Tough To Talk, we see every day how stigma continues to affect men in particular.
Many of the men we encounter are not unwilling to seek support.
They simply do not feel safe doing so.
For years they may have absorbed messages about being strong, coping alone, not being a burden and keeping problems to themselves. By the time they are struggling, silence often feels easier than vulnerability.
That is why we strongly support any effort to normalise conversations about suicide and make it easier for people to ask for help without fear of judgement.
At the same time, our work has taught us something else.
Many people never reach the point of asking for help.
This is why Tough To Talk focuses on upstream suicide prevention.
We work with male-centric organisations and charities supporting vulnerable men to create cultures where distress is recognised earlier, conversations happen sooner and intervention takes place before crisis develops.
Through our peer-led role models, known as Tough Talkers, we help trusted people recognise behavioural signs of distress, start human conversations and bridge the gap between silence and support.
In our view, these approaches are not competing priorities.
They are complementary.
Reducing stigma helps more people feel able to speak.
Upstream prevention helps more people be noticed when they don't.
If we are serious about reducing suicide, we need both.
We need a society where people feel safe talking about suicidal thoughts.
And we need workplaces, communities and organisations where people are equipped to recognise distress before someone reaches breaking point.
That is why Tough To Talk is supporting Philip Pirie's campaign.
His proposal represents an opportunity to move from recognising stigma as a problem to taking meaningful action to address it. It aligns with the Government's own commitment to reduce suicide stigma and could help create the cultural shift needed to save lives.
If you believe we need a national public health campaign to reduce the stigma of suicide, please sign and share the petition:
Changing culture starts with conversation.
Changing outcomes starts with action.
This is a campaign worth supporting.
Philip Pirie - Suicide Prevention Campaigner
Philip is a father bereaved by the suicide of his son Tom. Tom took his own life in 2020, the day after he had been assessed as low risk of suicide. Philip was shocked to learn that of the 17 people who take their own lives every day in the UK, five are in contact with mental health services and four of those five, 80%, are assessed as low or no risk of suicide at their last contact.
His campaign on this led to the publication of new NHS England guidance Staying Safe from Suicide in April 2025, containing 10 best practice principles, of which Philip was co-chair. This guidance says do not predict or stratify suicide risk into low, medium or high, but take a person-centred, collaborative approach.
The present phase of Philip’s campaigning is for a pubic health campaign to reduce the stigma of suicide. Of those 17 who take their own lives every day, 12 are not in contact with mental health services, and one of the main reasons is stigma. Stigma stops people, especially men, talking about their suicidal feelings. And it also stops the rest of us engaging with them, often for fear of putting the idea of suicide in their minds. We know now that it doesn’t put the idea into their minds. On the contrary - suicidal people feel relieved to hear someone engaging with them.
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