Cookham Wood Secure Training Centre

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Ministerial Corrections

[Tom Brake]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what (a) injuries and (b) injuries requiring external medical treatment were sustained during restraint incidents on girls held in Medway secure training centre in each month since 1998.

[Official Report, 14 September 2010, Vol. 515, c. 983-984W.]

Letter of correction from Mr Blunt:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on 14 September 2010.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Blunt]

The YJB has collected data since April 2007 showing the number of injuries in each category, but this data is not broken down by gender.

The definitions for these categories are:

Minor injury requiring medical treatment

This includes cuts, scratches, grazes, blood noses, concussion, serious bruising and sprains where medical treatment is given by a member of staff or a nurse. Treatment could include cleaning and dressing wounds, providing pain relief, and monitoring symptoms by a health professional (e.g. in relation to concussion). This includes first aid administered by a staff member.

Serious injury requiring hospital treatment

This includes serious cuts, fractures, loss of consciousness and damage to internal organs. Where 24-hour health care is available the young person may remain onsite. At other establishments, the young person will be taken to a local hospital. Treatment will reflect the more serious nature of the injuries sustained and may include stitches, re-setting bones, operations and providing overnight observation.

It is currently a contractual requirement for any young person within an STC who has been restrained to be visited by a registered nurse within thirty minutes following the use of restraint.

The latest data available is for 2008-09 and is provided in the table as follows. The data from 2009-10 will be available following the publication of the 2009-10 annual YJB Workload statistics.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing and may be subject to change over time.