§ Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many suicides involving prison service staff have occurred in each of the past three years; and what steps have been put in place to support vulnerable staff.
§ Mr. Michael Forsyth[holding answer 19 December 1994]: Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. George Howarth, dated 20 December 1994:
The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about suicides involving Prison Service staff.There were five staff suicides in 1992 and four in 1993. There have been ten this year, and the Prison Service is most concerned about this increase, as it is about each individual case. In all cases, the principal causes appear to have been related to their private lives rather than work.The Prison Service has a staff care and welfare service whose role is to assist staff to give of their best by providing for them and their families a confidential service to enable them to deal with personal and work related problems.A specific part off that role is to provide care support and counselling to staff who have been involved in incidents at work, to help prevent or relieve the symptoms of post traumatic stress which may result.A workshop was held in November to examine issues related to staff suicide. A number of ideas emerged from this - relating, for example, to the provision of training in stress management, the operation of care teams and links with outside agencies, which will be examined further. We shall continue to keep this matter under very careful review to see whether there are additional steps which could helpfully be taken.