HC Deb 11 July 1995 vol 263 cc479-80W
Mr. Flynn

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 18 April,Official Report, column 92, what percentage of the total prison population was judged to be mentally ill in each of the past 10 years; and of these what percentage (a) had been diagnosed as mentally ill before arrest, (b) had been homeless before arrest, (c) was imprisoned for serious offences, (d) was subject to the care programme approach and (e) was sent to private hospitals. [31222]

Miss Widdecombe

[holding answer 27 June 1995]: 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. Paul Flynn, dated 11 July 1995: The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about mentally ill prisoners. Information is not available centrally on the nature of the offences committed by prisoners who are in receipt of care and treatment for mental health problems. Neither is information available about whether such prisoners were subject to the Care Programme Approach or on their histories before arrest. The information which is available is as follows. From December 1991, Prison Service establishments have carried out regular medical monitoring exercises. To monitor the assessed needs of mentally disordered prisoners, of whom the mentally ill form one category, information is centrally collected on a periodic basis. On a given day prisoners who are considered by prison doctors to need some form of mental health care are categorised as follows:

  1. (a) prisoners requiring removal or transfer to a psychiatric hospital under Mental Health Act provisions and who are awaiting such transfer. This figure includes remand prisoners awaiting disposal by the court;
  2. (b) prisoners who are sufficiently ill to be occupying in-patient beds in prison health care centre.
  3. (c) prisoners requiring some form of mental health care but not removal/transfer to psychiatric hospital or in-patient treatment in a prison health care centre.
These single day surveys can be used to calculate a figure for the average number of prisoners requiring transfer to a psychiatric hospital or some other form of mental health care on any one day in the years 1992, 1993 and 1994. This gives the following results, expressed as a percentage of the average prison population, including those in police cells:
  • 1992 –5.4 per cent.
  • 1993 –6.0 per cent.
  • 1994 –5.6 per cent.
 Prisoners transferred to hospital under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983 cannot be taken directly from prison to a private psychiatric hospital. Arrangements can, however, be made for prisoners to be transferred on to such hospitals immediately after they have first been taken to a National Health Service hospital. information on transfers to hospital in 1994 is still provisional and subject to revision. The current provisional total number of transfers from prison to psychiatric hospital under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983 is now 792, which is greater than the provisional figure included in the table enclosed with my letter to your of 18 April. The provisional figure for transfers to private hospitals for 1994 is 57, which represents 7.2 per cent. of the total. This particular information was not collected centrally before 1994.