§ Mr. Hancockasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will review procedures for giving prisoners medical attention in the light of the recent escape of Mark Cooper in Portsmouth; and if he will make a statement.
270Whospitals on transfer from prisons, remand centres and youth custody centres under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983; and if he will list for each year since 1980 the age of the prisoner, the diagnosis and the length of stay in the special hospital or prison establishment from which the transfer has taken place.
§ Mr. MellorThe readily available information for years 1980 to 1985 by length of custody prior to admission to a special hospital is shown in the table.
§ Mr. MellorStatutory responsibility for the health care of inmates of any prison service establishment rests with the medical officer of the establishment, who has complete clinical freedom to determine the treatment needs of his patients and to make such arrangements as he considers appropriate for meeting them. The decision whether a particular type of treatment required by a patient can best 271W be provided in situ, or at another establishment within the prison system, or at an outside hospital or clinic, will depend on the circumstances of the individual case and the options available. Security considerations will be among those taken into account, but the medical officer's primary concern must be to meet his statutory and professional obligations to his patient. When a full report on Mr. Cooper's case is available the Director of Prison Medical Services will consider whether there are any lessons to be drawn from it which could usefully be brought to the attention of medical officers.
§ Mr. Hancockasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prison officers were accompanying Mark Cooper at the time of his escape from St. Mary's hospital, Portsmouth on 23 October;
(2) if Mark Cooper was left alone for any period of time prior to his recent abscondment in Portsmouth.
§ Mr. MellorOn 22 October Mr. Cooper, an inmate at Kingston prison, escaped from an outside hospital to which he had been taken, escorted by two officers, for a session of physiotherapy. Inquiries into the circumstances of the escape are continuing. However, preliminary reports indicate that, at the end of the session, one officer remained in the gymnasium where the session had taken place while the prisoner changed in an adjoining alcove and the other officer went to arrange transport for the return journey to the prison. It appears that the prisoner escaped through a fire escape door from the alcove. He was apprehended by police at Northwich in Cheshire the following morning.
§ Mr. Hancockasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners have escaped from custody while on hospital visits in the past four years.
§ Mr. MellorThe number of adult prisoners reported as having escaped from outside hospitals to which they had been sent for treatment, either as in-patients or as outpatients, were as follows:
Year Number 1982 20 1983 19 1984 25 1985 17 Eight such cases were reported in the first nine months of this year.