Mental Health Services: Prisons

(asked on 16th May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps have been taken to tackle delays in transferring people with mental health problems from prison to hospital.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 21st May 2019

NHS England is the commissioning body responsible for ensuring high quality low, medium and high secure hospital accommodation.

As part of this role, NHS England has developed a national approach to ensuring close partnership working with local NHS England health and justice teams to review patients’ needs and expedite access to secure mental health beds. This also includes a more detailed understanding of challenges in the system in relation to remissions from hospital to prison, so that access, progress and throughput is improved.

NHS England commissioned a repeat of the 2017 National Health Service benchmarking audit on transfers and remissions in early 2019, and a full analysis of this data is currently taking place. This information will help to ensure that challenges and delays in the system are addressed to ensure timely and appropriate transfers of care.

The current ‘Prison Transfer and Remission Best Practice Guidance’, published by the Department in 2011, is being reviewed and two separate documents are being developed to replace it: one for immigration removal centres and another for prisons.

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