Life and death.

NURSES ARE identified by the government as being at higher than average risk of suicide. Around 27 nurses kill themselves every year, or one a fortnight. That is fewer than in farming, 52 a year, but more than in the medical profession- 17 a year. In England 5,000 people kill themselves annually, many of them men under 35. Preferred methods are hanging and self-poisoning by psychotropic drugs or analgesics. If you are male, living alone, unemployed, misuse drugs or alcohol and have a history of mental illness, you score top marks for all major risk factors. In such circumstances, it is unlikely that you were much moved by the Department of Health's National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published earlier this year, and its plan to reduce suicide by at least 20 per cent by 2010.