Student Minds responds to parliamentary debate on a statutory duty of care for university students

8/6/2023

Overview of the debate

On Monday, a statutory duty of care for students at university was debated in the House of Commons, a culmination of tremendous efforts by campaigners through months of work and dedication. We fully celebrate the achievement of getting student mental health on the national agenda and are all indebted to the families and friends who have been campaigning and sharing their experiences to drive positive change.

Members of Parliament spoke to the personal experiences of their constituents, families with experiences of bereavement and students that had difficult experiences at university. These devastating accounts demonstrated the urgent need for accountable processes and clarity on the role of institutions in preventing student deaths by suicide.

Robert Halfon, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships & Higher Education, spoke to the governments’ planned approach:

Through the Department for Education, the Minister committed to the following:
- Continue funding vital services
- Ensure the sector is implementing best practice
- Clarify the roles responsibilities for providers & protection for students
Ensuring that the sector engages with the support frameworks and guidance that has been developed across the sector. The Minister has written to ask all unis to sign up to the Charter Programme by Sept 2024.
Professor Edward Peck, the governments’ Student Support Champion, has been tasked to convene an Implementation Taskforce that will be asked to produce a final report by May 2024 that will support institutions to improve across the following areas:
- Early identification for students at risk, utilising data analytics.
- Establishing a University Student Commitment with more compassionate academic processes to support students facing assignments or course dismissal.
- Share existing reviews of previous cases to ensure everyone can learn from these tragic events.
- Ensure best practice is fully implemented, with targets to be set for improvement by the sector.
The Department for Education will continue to monitor how effectively the existing law is being applied. If the sector is slow or unwilling to engage with the action plan set-out, then the Minister may ask that the Office for Students explores a regulatory condition for student mental health.

Ministerial support for the University Mental Health Charter

As an organisation, we are committed to an approach that drives forward change across the sector addressing both the root causes of poor mental health within university communities and how this needs to be addressed on an ongoing basis as it evolves over time. This is why we developed the University Mental Health Charter.

Following the debate, the Rt. Hon. Robert Halfon MP, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, has written to leaders across the higher education sector to express his ambition that all eligible universities join the University Mental Health Charter Programme by September 2024. We hope that this will help to formalise a genuine commitment from all universities across the sector to embed a whole-university approach to student mental health.

To date, 61 institutions have signed-up to become members of the programme and we know that many more universities are committed to make the changes needed to embed mental health and wellbeing into university communities that will improve student mental health. We want to support universities to understand what a whole-university approach to student mental health means for them in practice, give them opportunities to learn from each other and foster safe spaces for open, reflective discussions and learning.

With recruitment opening soon for 23/24 we are cautiously optimistic about what this might mean for the next year’s Programme membership and look forward to meeting with universities that may consider joining for the first time. We also look forward to working with the Department for Education and the Minister to explore how the government can support this ambition and respond to the wider factors surfaced in the parliamentary debate which contribute to the wellbeing of the university community.

Where next on a Statutory Duty of Care

Preventing deaths by suicide is a nuanced, complex, issue, as is addressing poor student mental health more widely. There isn’t a simple solution. We believe that what will prevent further student deaths by suicide is the material changes made to students’ experiences, accountability measures, support, and the way universities and the wider health system aid students in distress. We understand that some may see a duty of care as a way to direct universities to make these changes, but we are not confident this would play out in practice.

At Student Minds, we are an independent charity led by student experience, strong evidence and clinical oversight. We ensure that any work we support or develop is evidence-led and shaped by the expertise of students, HE professionals and clinicians. We are not afraid to challenge the government, universities or other organisations where necessary and often have in the past.

When the petition was first developed we consulted the LEARN network, students, staff, clinicians and legal experts. While supportive of some of the asks of the campaign - for greater clarity on the roles and responsibilities of universities and for the gap in accountability to be addressed - we were not convinced that a full Statutory Duty of Care was the right approach at this time having not received evidence that the unintended consequences and potential to cause inadvertent harm would be managed.

Earlier this year we published a news piece outlining the approach we take with the Charter and the recognition we have that this needs to be a joined-up effort across the Higher Education sector, working with the NHS, working with national policy makers and campaigners, and by building on research and evidence to strengthen and improve practice. We also attended the Petitions Committee’s evidence session to speak to the approach we’re taking with the University Mental Health Charter and the guidance, frameworks and best practice that has been being developed over the last few years.

Student Minds will follow the progress the sector makes, and with our support, over the next 12 months. We will continue to engage with providers and the government to review our position on regulation as required. Thank you to all our supporters, advisors and collaborators for working with us to secure a future where no student is held back by their mental health.

Further support

We understand that it's not easy for any students, family members or members of the university community to read about these very difficult issues and we encourage anyone affected to look after themselves and reach out to others if required (please see links provided below).

Are you looking for support?
Research into student mental health suggests that broad support networks can help recovery from, and management of, mental health difficulties. Your wider support network might include friends and family, your GP, University counselling / wellbeing services.

Are you feeling actively suicidal?
If you are feeling like you want to die, please consider that many people who have attempted or come close to suicide look back with gratitude that they did not act on their intentions. If you are feeling actively suicidal now:

Make a deal with yourself that you will not act just yet.
Tell someone else how you are feeling or find someone to be with you.
If that is not possible right now, phone: Samaritans: 116 123, NHS non-emergency: 111, or HOPEline UK: 0800 068 41 41 / text: 0776 209 697 (Opening hours are 10am-10pm weekdays, 2pm-10pm weekends, and 2pm-10pm Bank Holidays.)

2 Comments

Lee Fryatt

8/6/2023 03:30:51 pm

SM makes much of the term ' unintended consequences ' but is yet to define precisely what they might be. Perhaps in the interest of transparency they should start being specific and produce some actual evidence in support of their own arguments against more legal support for students.

Whilst Student Minds does represent students it is not entirely independent from the sector. It's board consists of existing VC's, it receives funding from the sector and universities directly fund the Charter.

Whilst we support SM endeavours to drive improvements we do think SM needs to be much more transparent in its relationship with the sector.

Student Minds

13/6/2023 10:42:10 am

Hi Lee,

Thank you for your comment. We appreciate your feedback and hope we can provide some further clarity. You raise two points here which we’ll try to address below.

The first point, on ‘unintended consequences’ and ‘transparency’.

An inherent difficulty when discussing unintended consequences is we are dealing with unknowns. The knock-on impacts of a duty of care on student and staff behaviour, including help-seeking and accessing support, have not been fully established, as far as we are aware. We are not familiar with any comprehensive risk assessment or research done into this area - if it’s demonstrated that a statutory duty could manage all foreseen risks then we may be in support. In raising concerns about the potential consequences we hope only to make sure that whatever is developed doesn’t inadvertently do harm - so it’s not to say that these couldn’t be managed, but we should be cautious before we roll anything out quickly on such an important and complex issue. Some potential consequences that we’re mindful of, that have been raised by students and staff, are:

- That it could result in the sector becoming more risk-averse and lead to a focus on putting students through Fitness to Study procedures and removing them from an institution rather than focusing on support - as mentioned in AMOSSHE’s recent news piece.

- That students could perceive, rightly or wrongly, there to be consequences to them reaching out for support (e.g. their families being contacted when they don’t want them to be or them being put through a Fitness to Study procedure) and this could create a barrier to help-seeking.

- That further regulation and legislation would mean institutions divert resources away from student support in order to fund the needed staffing to manage risk & litigation.

- That staff may otherwise feel compelled to act in ways which may in fact be detrimental to the situation, in order to avoid litigation or legal liability.

- That this could actually move the sector backwards. Where so much work has gone in to ensure we can have open conversations around mental health over the last decade, a statutory duty may work to create a culture where both staff and students, for different reasons, would be nervous to have open conversations about their mental health.

As referenced in the news piece, we were invited to present evidence at the Petitions Committee meeting last month and did so alongside colleagues from Papyrus, NUS, AMOSSHE and UUK. The recording and the transcript are both publicly available and were linked to in our statement above.

The second point, on our funding and independence.

While we do operate within both the higher education and health sectors, we are an independent charity. The policy positions that we take are led by the evidence that we have available to us and the voices of students, staff and clinicians. We have to develop our stance through our typical governance structures, oversight processes and evidence based-approach, as this affords all our work the same level of consistency and care.

We have a strong track record of being critical of the government and universities alike as demonstrated by our previous campaigns, policy work, and press engagements.

Like all charities, we work hard to ensure we have a diverse, sustainable income to fund the work we do. Some of that funding does include funding from the sector when we partner on projects, such as through the six innovative OFS projects we have been a part of or through our earned income through our programmes (such as the University Mental Health Charter or our Training).

As a charity, we rely on funding in order to deliver our work. The funding for the University Mental Health Charter is to cover the operational running costs of running the Programme and Award process - e.g. paying our staff, paying the assessors, travel for events & site visits, accommodation for site visits, venue booking and catering for delivering events and paying external speakers for events.

Our Board does include a Vice-Chancellor. It also currently includes four students, a former Students’ Union CEO, an academic with specialism in student mental health and Board members with experience from sectors outside HE that bring specialist skills to support our work (such as digital, communications, campaigning, HR, fundraising, financial management, etc.). We have a diverse Board to ensure good governance, which ensures that no single funder or type of funding influences our decision-making processes.

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