Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of (a) research and (b) data on incidents of mental health issues in prisons.

The Secretary of State for Health meets with many people and organisations to discuss a wide variety of topics. Specific details of these conversations are not available.

It is recognised there is a need to improve both research activity and the quality of data on mental health needs of people in prison. Recent reports from both the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and the National Audit Office have highlighted these issues. The last comprehensive survey of mental health needs in prisons was commissioned by the Department in 1997.

The Department, NHS England and Public Health England are working with the National Institute for Health Research to address this deficit, identifying key research priorities. Recently, NHS England has commissioned research on self-inflicted deaths in prisons as this is a priority issue due to high levels of self-harm and suicide recorded in prisons currently.

Further work is currently underway by the Department, Public Health England, NHS England, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and the Ministry of Justice to improve the quality of health data from prisons with a specific focus on mental health data.

NHS England’s new clinical IT system will facilitate improvements in data quality and reporting on all aspects of healthcare in prisons, including mental health. To support this, NHS England is implementing clinical templates across the secure estate including mental health templates, as well as reviewing the current data set. A new and revised quality indicator set will be reported on from April 2018.