Damning report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prison’s report on the mental health of prisoners
Monday 01 October 2007Comment on this article Permlink
Steps to improve the mental healthcare of prisoners have been outlined by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Five key recommendations were made:
- The Department of Health, through the Care Service Improvement Partnership (CSIP), should issue commissioning guidance to local PCTs with the aim of ensuring that there is sufficient proactive support, case management and care in the community for those with multiple needs that include mental health, as well as provision of sufficient secure and acute mental health beds
- There should be a national service specification for court diversion and liaison schemes that specifies funding, governance, services, staffing, location and accountability, and that requires monitoring by ethnicity, disability and gender
- There should be a blueprint for delivering mental healthcare in prisons, which ensures appropriate support and governance for mental health staff and which specifies the services required, based on the complex needs of those in prison, including the specific needs of women and black and minority ethnic prisoners, drawing on the detailed recommendations in this report
- The Department of Health and the National Offender Management Service should ensure that commissioning arrangements, protocols and guidance to staff emphasise
and support joint working between mental healthcare services and other services and staff in prisons, to ensure the delivery of coordinated care and management for each individual prisoner - Reception screening in prisons for mental health needs should be improved and consistently implemented, so that those who may have previously undisclosed mental or emotional problems, and those with learning disabilities, can be professionally
assessed and appropriate mental health and/or other interventions put in.
The report can be found on the HMIP website under the thematic review section.
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- Damning report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prison’s report on the mental health of prisoners
