§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate(a) the number of prisoners discharged to the care of mental hospitals in each of the last three calendar years, (b) the average length of each discharge and (c) the numbers of prisoners discharged to each receiving hospital; and if he will make a statement on the financial arrangements between prisons and hospitals for such discharges. [72609]
§ Mr. George HowarthThe latest relevant available information relates to numbers of prisoners transferred to hospitals as restricted patients and is as follows:
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Table 1: Numbers of prisoners transferred to the care of mental hospitals as restricted patients in years 1995 to 1997 1995 1996 1997 Transferred from prison to hospital after sentence1 249 264 251 Transferred from prison to hospital while unsentenced or untried2 473 481 494 All transfers from Prison Service establishments 722 745 745 1 Transfers from Prison Service establishments under section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983 with restrictions under section 49 2 Transfers under section 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983. These figures do not include transfers to hospital where the prisoners are not admitted as a restricted patient or where prisoners are immediately admitted to hospital following discharge from prison at the completion of sentence.
Discharges of prisoners to hospital are for an indeterminate amount of time. This means that it is not possible to calculate the average length of each discharge. It is, however, possible to tabulate at the end of each year the number of transferred prisoners who have been held in hospital for different periods of time.
Table 2: Restricted patients detained in hospital at the end of the year who had been originally transferred from Prison Service establishments by period spent in hospital 1995 1996 1997 Unsentenced or untried Under 3 months 111 91 99 3 to 6 months 34 25 42 over 6 months 39 53 89 All sentenced or untried 184 169 230 Patients transferred after sentence Under 2 years 176 161 152 Over 2 to 5 years 94 97 94 Over 5 to 10 years 55 56 66 Over 10 to 20 years 44 57 66 Over 20 years 11 11 11 All patients transferred after sentence 380 382 389 All patients detained who were originally transferred from Prison Service establishments 564 551 619 The table relating to the numbers of prisoners discharged to each receiving hospital in the year 1995 to 1997 is lengthy so a copy has been placed in the library.
The Prison Service meets the costs of a prisoner's health care inside prison walls itself. That would include any assessment or treatment for mental disorder. If a prisoner needs to be admitted to an outside hospital for treatment for mental disorder, either while in prison custody or on release, the costs of such treatment would be borne by the NHS.