A STUDENT killed herself after a plea for help following an earlier suicide bid went unanswered as welfare staff were striking, it was revealed.

Ceara Thacker, 19, died three months after telling advisers at the University of Liverpool she'd attempted to take her life with an overdose.

An internal review shows that welfare staff failed to plan around strike action to ensure they could help students in crisis, the Huffington Post reports.

It reveals how the first year philosophy student submitted a self-referral requesting help that went unanswered for more than a month.

Weeks later she was found hanged.

Ceara's distraught family are now campaigning so that their daughter doesn't become "just another statistic".

They were only told about Ceara's first suicide attempt two days after her death on May 11.

"We don't want the same things to happen again," said Ceara's dad Iain.

"Otherwise it might just go unnoticed and become just another statistic and nothing's improved."

The university’s review was ordered by a coroner, who was due to preside over an inquest into the teenager's death on Wednesday.

In the report seen by the Post, it was noted that during a “period of extended industrial action there was no one available within the Mental Health Advisory Service to see students”.

Ceara experienced suicidal thoughts just two weeks into her studies in October last year.

By February 21 her mental health had declined to the point that she tried to take her own life.

Staff were notified and she put her in a taxi to the hospital, but neither her parents nor the academic side of the university were informed.

The review adds that Ceara's request for help went unanswered in the period between February 22 and March 26 due to “extended industrial action” and overstretched staffing, as one member of the institution’s small student mental health team had left their role.

Her mum Lorraine Denton-Thacker has raised concerns for the health of daughters' friends following her daughter's death.

“They are still bearing that responsibility and that is what I find difficult to deal with going forward," she said.

"Young people shouldn’t have to take on that level of responsibility. They had no idea what to do and they are all equally suffering now.

"It’s not gone away. That’s horrendous.”

The University of Liverpool and Mersey Care NHS Trust have said they would not comment until the conclusion of the inquest.