§ 25. Mr. JOWETTasked the Home Secretary if he will give the House a Return of the number of trained and certificated nurses in the prisons of Great Britain; the kind of training that these nurses receive, and the hospitals where they are trained; the number of sick cases that go through the prisons' hospitals in the course of the year; how many of these cases are cases of infectious disease; what training for maternity is necessary for the attendants in the women's prisons where confinements take place; and what provision for nursing is made in the men's prisons?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)Among the male staff of the prisons in England there are 123 hospital warders 811 and nine pharmacists. These have been specially selected on account of their previous hospital experience acquired mostly as members of the Royal Army Medical Corps and as sick berth stewards in the Royal Navy, and they are also given special training after joining the prison service. All members of the female staff are given instruction in nursing, and those who show special aptitude or have had previous experience are selected to act as hospital officers. Further, the prison governors are authorised to engage a nurse from any local nursing institution if necessary in any case of special difficulty. This includes any maternity case, if there is no officer on the staff of the prison capable of dealing with it. Full statistics of hospital cases are given in the Prison Commissioners' annual reports. In 1912–13 there were 8,615 male and 2,780 female prisoners admitted to hospital for treatment or observation. The number of infectious cases was fifteen.