Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department receives from NHS providers on the mental health conditions of prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection.

The NHS is responsible for delivering healthcare services, including mental health services, in prisons in England and Wales.

All prisoners, including those serving IPP sentences, have access to integrated mental health services. Healthcare provision is based on assessed clinical need and is not determined by sentence type. Consequently, routine data sets do not generally allow for identification of specific diagnoses across patient groups based on the prisoner’s sentence category. Any detailed or bespoke analysis of clinical conditions among cohorts defined by sentence type would, therefore, need to be led by DHSC and NHS England, who are responsible for the relevant data and its governance.

More broadly, the Government remains determined to support the rehabilitation of IPP prisoners, through the IPP Action Plan, which we published on 17 July 2025. The Plan puts an important emphasis on effective frontline delivery in our prisons and the Probation Service, to ensure that those serving IPP sentences have robust and effective sentence plans and that they are in the location most appropriate to their needs. It also includes a commitment to explore ways to better identify and support IPP prisoners with mental health needs, ensuring they can access appropriate treatment and interventions as part of their sentence progression.