The Health Secretary will tell the boss of Instagram he must use his experience of rooting out terrorist-related posts to purge the social media site of suicide and self-harm images.

Matt Hancock has summoned senior executives of the photo-sharing network to Whitehall, and on Thursday he will meet Adam Mosseri, the worldwide Head of Instagram, to demand change.

It comes as a government mental health adviser says that sites like Instagram are “normalising” self-harm and risking the creation of a “suicide generation”.

The Daily Telegraph’s Duty of Care campaign is calling for online giants like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to protect children and vulnerable people from harmful content posted on their sites.

Later this week Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, will for the first time publish guidelines for parents on children’s use of the internet, which will include a recommendation for screen time to be limited to two hours at a time.

The Telegraph has learnt that Mr Mosseri will travel to London to meet Mr Hancock, who will tell him that Instagram must enforce its policy of banning under-13s from having their own accounts.