Male suicide: CALM on Department of Heath help for men

Suicide is the biggest killers of young men in the UK.

Three times as many men commit suicide as women, and being male is known to be the most common risk factor.

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), an organisation that tries to help is complaining that the Department of Health is failing to recognise the problem.

In a statement, the Department of Health said that many statutory and third sector organisations have already set up projects to support men and encourage them to contact services when they are in distress.

Jane Powell, the campaign's founder and director, told the Today programme that the problem was "cultural", she explained that "we don't see men as needing help".

She said a man who is pressed is more likely to behave aggressively and end up in prison.

And she added: "That underlines the need to look at this nationally, within the mental health viewpoint, and culturally."

Martin Seager, consultant clinical psychologist at the SW Yorkshire Partnership Trust, said that it was important that we "remove the blind eye" that we are tuning towards this.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, external on Friday 9 August 2013.