Wouldn’t a percentage of population be a better measure of increase or decrease. I’m not going to research numbers but I remember a time when there were 56 million people in the UK, there’s now over 70 million. You would expect, just by the law of averages, that the suicide numbers would increase. But a percentage would show if people were, in general, more or less depressed/willing to take their own life.
However, I’m no statistician so I’m more than happy to be corrected.
Suicide rates (at least in Europe) are measured in deaths per 100,000 population, that is, they make comparable figures for each country independent of population.
The UK is actually quite a 'good performing' country within the EU + Associated area regarding LOW suicide rate. The average in the EU in 2014 was 11 per 100,000. The UK was at 7.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20170517-1
Some of the former communist bloc countries, along with ex-Yugoslavia, perform "badly" - although Bulgaria manages to come in under the average. (at 10), and Romania is at 11. Intriguingly, Slovenia the wealthiest of all the former Socialist country, has a very high sucicide rate.
The Latin countries appear to "do well" - maybe this is to do with the "manjana" effect, ie who cares, don't worry - or maybe its stronger family ties or maybe they don't attribute all the deaths they should do to suicide.
And maybe it's just down to nicer weather, with far less influence from long, dark winter nights - which I hear has a big effect in Scandinavia.
At a meeting of suicide prevention professional that I went to some years ago, it was stressed how suicides tend to mimic one another, and how important it was for the media not to mention details such as the location - as this tended to attract more 'copy-cat' attempts. Obviously, if a certain rail location starts to get a name, "word spreads" - rather like a perverse advertising or marketing campaign.