Professor Joyce O'Connor:

Absolutely. We can agree on that. I accept the point about social media and I think it is a big issue. A very interesting conference on technology and well-being was held recently. I will send the data on it to the Chairman. It addressed some of the issues and people are becoming more aware of their implications. To turn this on its head, however, people are also looking at the power of technology to intervene earlier with young people. They are using the ReachOut.com model that was used in Australia and has been very effective. In Australia, there are 1.6 million users and researchers have been able to gather data and look at who is using them. Surprisingly, young people aged between 18 and 25 with suicide ideation often used it positively to help them. E-mental health and technology can also aid GPs in the area of early intervention.

The new communities can be addressed in the education area and if the necessary support was there it could act as an early intervener because they are seen on a day-to-day basis. A joined-up interdepartmental and inter-agency system, in which local community GPs and NGOs work together, is more likely to pick up early intervention issues so that a case does not have to be really severe to get attention.