It has been drawn to my attention that my article ^{Reference Holmes1} implicitly criticises the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness (NCI), attributing to it comments which are rarely if ever found in its pages. In fact the NCI makes specific focused recommendations which, when implemented, reduce suicide rates. ^{Reference While, Bickley, Roscoe, Windfuhr, Rahman and Shaw2} My remarks, admittedly anecdotal, based on my own and colleagues' experiences, were directed not so much at the NCI, but at internal hospital enquiries and the double standards which pervade the way psychiatric and non-psychiatric deaths are handled. I stand however by the view that administrative fragmentation, underfunding and de-professionalisation of psychiatry all play their part when people suffering from psychiatric illnesses kill themselves.