10 November 2006
Too many people with mental health problems are languishing in prison when they could be better cared for in the healthcare system, parliamentarians said this week.
MPs and peers from across the political spectrum united to call for a radical rethink of the boundaries between mental ill health and criminality and urged the government to fund a massive investment in mental healthcare for prisoners.
The All-Party Group on Prison Health highlighted the high number of offenders with mental health problems. A report, published by the group on November 7, cited Office of National Statistics figures, which show that 90% of prisoners had a least one mental health disorder. A smaller but significant proportion have severe problems such as schizophrenia or a personality disorder.
Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons and a contributor to the report, told Public Finance that its publication was very timely given the current focus on prison overcrowding and the likely inclusion of the National Offender Management Service bill in next week's Queen's speech. 'We have to look at the prison population and see if there are any parts of it that should not be there,' he said.
Ramsbotham added that, although the NHS was now responsibility for prison healthcare, there was a lack of continuity with community services, with prisoners often transferred far away from their home health authorities and GPs only recently able to access prison health records.
The group visited four prisons and took evidence from experts. They identified psychiatric staff shortages and a lack of primary care in prisons to help those with common problems such as anxiety and depression.
Labour MP Fabian Hamilton who chairs the group said: 'The evidence is overwhelming. We are trying to deal with people with mental health problems in a dysfunctional system.
'What is needed is a massive investment that provides high quality support outside prison but with the current crisis of overcrowding and the cost of keeping an individual in prison running at £37,000 a year we believe that will be money well spent.'
The report also called for greater use of court diversion and liaison schemes, which refer offenders with serious mental health problems to an appropriate health service unit rather than prison.
Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, told PF a national network of such schemes should be rolled out and made a mandatory part of all primary care trust local delivery plans. 'Without this prison will continue to be a social dustbin for many people with serious mental health problems,' he said.
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