Deaths in custody report shows need for massive boost for prison mental health care, says Sainsbury Centre

21 September 2007

Prisoners with mental health problems need better care and more effective diversion into mental health services to reduce the toll of avoidable deaths in custody, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health said today.

Responding to the Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody Annual Report, Sainsbury Centre prisons and criminal justice programme director Sean Duggan said: Last year there were 73 deaths by suicide in our prisons and 41 in Mental Health Act detention. Not enough progress is being made to get these tragic statistics down.

"In the past 12 months we have seen record numbers of people in both prisons and secure hospitals *. While overall numbers of deaths in custody are falling, suicide rates continue to be a cause for concern.

"Today's report confirms the urgent need to invest in basic primary mental health care in prison. We need effective screening of prisoners with depression and anxiety coupled with timely access to treatment, including much-needed psychological therapies.

"We also need to improve diversion of people with severe mental health problems into the NHS. Community-based alternatives to hospital detention must be explored so that custody is only ever used where there is no safe alternative.

"We also need to review the use of indeterminate sentences. The number of people on Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) has risen beyond all expectations **. It is vital that, if this practice is to continue, everyone subject to IPP receives high quality mental health care.

"Finally, we need improvements to the way the NHS, prisons, the police and other relevant services share information. Better information sharing, and reducing the number of times prisoners are moved from one prison to another without their medical notes, can save lives and ensure people do not get lost in the gaps between services."

The Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody Annual Report for 2006/07 shows there were 523 deaths in custody in 2006/07, two-thirds of which were of natural causes and over half of which were in Mental Health Act detention.

The Sainsbury Centre has a major work programme to improve the mental health of prisoners. We are working with the Government's Offender Health team to identify examples of good practice in reducing the risk of suicide in prison.

* Earlier in 2007, the prison population exceeded 80,000 for the first time. The population of secure hospitals reached a record 3,723 in July 2007.

** The number of people on IPP orders in English prisons now exceeds 3,000.