Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to improve the provision of addiction treatment in prisons.

Over the last 18 months, NHS England has been taking active steps to improve drug and alcohol services across the entire adult prison estate to address Dame Carol Black’s recommendations in her internal review and increase the provision of treatment and recovery services.

In 2025/26, we secured an additional £7 million, recurrently, to increase the provision of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is ringfenced to increase availability of long-acting buprenorphine, peer support, targeted psychosocial interventions delivered in Incentivised Substance Free Living wings and deliver targeted psychosocial interventions to address synthetic drug use.

Since funding was released in August 2025, every region has reported an increased offer into these key priorities, and some regions have reported a positive impact into the number of patients being under the influence.

Additionally, we have been working extensively with stakeholders across the health and justice sector, including providers, commissioners, patients, prison leaders and policy leads, to revise the national substance misuse service specification to improve consistency in design, delivery and oversight. A key change includes renaming the custodial services to Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery services, aligning to community and HM Prison and Probation Service terminology and reducing stigma attached to addiction. The revised spec is progressing towards the final stages ahead of publication later this year.