The event will bring together professionals, patients, and experts from several autonomous communities to review a decade of experience, share results, and discuss future challenges in the care of suicidal behaviour
Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital (HUMV) will hold a commemorative conference on 26 June to mark the tenth anniversary of the High‑Resolution Programme for the Management of Suicidal Behaviour and Suicide Prevention (CARS), a pioneering initiative that, since its launch in 2016, has become a national reference model for the care of people with suicidal behaviour.
Under the title “10 Years of the CARS Programme: Experience, Results and Future Perspectives”, the event will take place in the Téllez Plasencia Hall (Building 16) at Valdecilla and will bring together healthcare professionals, institutional representatives, patients, and experts from different regions of Spain.
The aim of the conference is to analyse the experience accumulated over the past decade, share key learnings, and reflect on the strategic lines that will shape the future of suicide prevention and mental‑health care. The programme follows the affective‑effective model, integrating scientific knowledge, clinical experience, patient perspectives, and the contribution of communication professionals.
Since its creation, the CARS Programme has developed a care model based on intensive, multidisciplinary, high‑resolution intervention, designed to improve accessibility, response times, and continuity of care. Over these ten years, the programme has achieved significant clinical and organisational outcomes and has been recognised with several awards for its innovative approach and its commitment to humanised care.
The institutional opening will feature representatives from the Regional Ministry of Health and the Hospital Management, together with Dr Jesús Artal Simón, Head of the Psychiatry Department at Valdecilla, and Dr Ana de Santiago Díaz, Head of the Psychiatry Section and Director of the CARS Programme.
Among the highlights is the keynote lecture “Suicide: Only a Public Health Problem?” delivered by Jesús Artal Simón, as well as a first‑person experience session in which two programme patients will share their stories and the role that the support received played in their recovery.
The event will also include a session dedicated to analysing the CARS model and its outcomes, and a roundtable discussion focused on the programme’s day‑to‑day functioning and the multidisciplinary work of its team, which includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, nursing professionals, and occupational therapists.
The programme will conclude with a session featuring professionals from La Rioja, Galicia, and Castilla y León, who will present different models for preventing suicidal behaviour and examine which elements of the Cantabrian experience may be transferable.
The conference will close with a session on clinical and strategic conclusions and an institutional closing ceremony with the participation of Óscar Fernández Torre, Director‑General for Planning, Organisation, Knowledge Management and Digital Health at the Regional Ministry of Health.
