§ Mr. Paul MarsdenTo ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the(a) care programme approach and (b) section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 apply to prisoners. [105175]
§ Jacqui SmithThe Government's policy, as set out in Changing the Outlook a Strategy for Developing and Modernising Mental Health Services in Prisons, December 2001, is that prisoners who were on the care programme approach (CPA) before coming into prison should be able to have their programmes of treatment continued as far as possible within the prison setting. Prisoners whose clinical profile would precipitate CPA in the community should commence on CPA in prison. The NHS Plan included firm commitments that, by 2004, all prisoners with severe mental illness will be in receipt of treatment and no prisoner with a serious mental illness will leave prison without a care plan and a care co-ordinator.
Implementation of the prison mental health strategy will have the effect of applying the aftercare arrangements required under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 to prisoners who, having been transferred to hospital for in-patient treatment, are subsequently returned to prison.