Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to (a) monitor and (b) improve response times to prisoner medical emergencies.

Prison governors are responsible for ensuring that their establishments respond promptly and appropriately to medical emergencies, and all prison staff must be aware of their responsibilities for responding to a medical emergency (including resuscitation, and ligature removal) and of the local procedures in place to support a streamlined response.

Responses to medical emergencies in prisons are undertaken, and monitored, locally by both prison and healthcare staff, and vary in the degree of seriousness and the level of medical intervention that is required.

The time and type (‘Code Blue’ / ‘Code Red’) of a medical emergency is recorded by prison service staff when it is reported to them by telephone or via radio, and this will initiate a response which will include on-site NHS-commissioned healthcare staff and/or first-aid trained prison staff. Staff will assess what intervention is needed and determine whether hospital treatment is required.

Prison staff will arrange for an ambulance to attend, if needed, and escort it to the nearest, safest point of access to the patient. Arrival and departure times of ambulances are recorded locally. All such instances, including response times, are discussed between prison and healthcare staff. Depending on the seriousness of the emergency, this will be either as part of a full debrief or, on the following day, as part of the regular daily reflection on the previous day’s occurrences.

While arrival and departure times of ambulances are recorded by prisons, the responsibility for their response times lies with the NHS, and, therefore, any questions related to this element of emergency responses should be directed to the Department for Health and Social Care.