The father of a student who killed himself is calling for the relaxation of data protection rules that currently deter universities from alerting parents that their child has serious mental health problems.

Last month Ben Murray, 19, who was studying English, became the third Bristol University student to die in the space of three weeks. Ten Bristol students have died since October 2016.

Ben’s father, James Murray, is urging universities to introduce changes this summer, before the next intake of freshers in September, in order to better support vulnerable students and prevent further suicides.

Central to his demands is that universities should be given the authority to share information with parents if there are serious concerns about a student’s wellbeing. If students do not want that information to be shared, they should be required to sign an opt-out, he argues.

“I understand that sharing data needs to be curtailed in certain situations, but in this situation we’ve got to stop the intellectual debate on data privacy and focus on protecting the vulnerable,” Murray said.

He said he hoped his son’s death on 5 May would mark a turning point in the way universities handle cases of students with poor mental health.

There are already changes afoot at Bristol, which is implementing an opt-in contract with students that would allow for contact with nominated next of kin if major concerns arise about their wellbeing.

Murray also wants universities to examine their processes for removing students, looking from the perspective of a young person with mental health problems. And he wants more resources to be invested in training tutors who find themselves on the frontline of student welfare.

He described his son as bright, kind, sensitive and intelligent beyond his years. Ben attended Sherborne independent boys’ school in Dorset and then Latymer in Hammersmith, west London. He loved nature, he was passionate about sport and he cared deeply about his friends and family.

He was deeply affected by the death of his grandparents in the months before he took his A-levels. He wanted to go to Edinburgh University, where he would have joined his brother and his girlfriend, but narrowly fell short of the three As required to secure his place.

Instead, in a last-minute scramble through the Ucas clearing process, he got a place at Bristol, where he arrived last September.

Murray believes that sudden change of plan and narrowly missing out on Edinburgh made his son vulnerable. “He loved Edinburgh. We had been there many times,” he said. “A sense of not succeeding becomes a sense of failure. I think that’s what Ben was carrying with him going to university. To take your own life you have to be in extraordinary mental pain.”

Ben told his family he was enjoying university, but they discovered after his death that he had struggled to engage with the course and had missed lectures and exams. Murray said his son had informed the university he was suffering from anxiety and he was sent a link to support services.

He killed himself a few days before he was due to leave Bristol at the end of a formal withdrawal process.

“One of the aspects of Ben’s removal from university which we later discovered was the absence of face-to-face meetings,” said Murray. “Part of the intervention has got to be face to face. Anyone working in a business or company that removed a member of staff by email or by letter without meeting them would have to look to their own job. These are human beings. They’ve spent £10,000 to be there and worked damned hard.

“The thing that shocked me the most of all was the reticence to share information about a student’s health with parents because of data privacy. To me it’s a nonsense when lives are at risk.

“When they were at school we considered them kids. Then at university we consider them adults. What’s the difference? Ten weeks of summer holidays, that’s all. It’s nothing.”

On Thursday, Murray raised these issues at the Festival of Higher Education, at the University of Buckingham, where the universities minister Sam Gyimah later told the audience he believed higher education institutions were in loco parentis.

Sir Anthony Seldon, the vice-chancellor of Buckingham, agreed that there should be more contact with parents. “Nothing matters more than preserving life. We need porous walls to save lives.”

A statement from Bristol said its vice-chancellor, Hugh Brady, had met Murray Sr and the university was actively working with parents to create preventive services and policies to help students avoid reaching crisis point.

“This includes implementing an opt-in contract with our students which would enable contact with nominated emergency contact if we had a major concern about their wellbeing,” the statement said.

“The new opt-in policy now means students will be asked each year (via registration) to give consent for the university to also be able to use the emergency contact details in situations which are not ‘life or death’ but where there are serious concerns about the student’s wellbeing.”

Murray said: “We will never know the whole story – that went with Ben. But we must do something in his honour to learn from what has happened.”

• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.