Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2024 to Question 8297 on Prisons: Food and Prescription Drugs, what steps he is taking to monitor the adequacy of (a) suicide prevention provision, (b) palliative care, (c) medical emergency care and (d) mental health care in prisons; and whether she has made an assessment of the adequacy of those steps.

NHS England, via the regional health and justice teams, has regular meetings with prison healthcare providers to ensure the quality of the services that are provided. These are also supplemented with local partnership boards where governors, commissioners, and providers meet to discuss any issues, risks, and areas of concern. This could include the number of prisoners who are currently under an Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork approach where there is a risk of self-harm, and the overall healthcare provision, including any issues around enablement.

The Dying Well in Custody Framework and supporting self-assessment framework describes a set of national standards for local adoption, and provides a tool for a local multi-disciplinary approach to providing agreed standards of palliative and end of life care to people in prison.