Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to treat and support prisoners who are addicted to psychoactive substances.

NHS England is working closely with Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service to ensure establishment-level resilience to psychoactive substances, through a co-ordinated approach to both supply reduction and demand reduction.

The UK Drug Misuse and Dependence Clinical Guidelines were recently updated by an independent expert working group, following a public consultation. The guidelines were published in July 2017. The Guidelines require that (as a part of a comprehensive assessment) there is confirmation of use of psychoactive substances and identification of the degree of problem use or dependence. This would usually be followed by abstinence-oriented psychosocial interventions.

The Guidelines are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/673978/clinical_guidelines_2017.pdf

NHS England is due to publish the revised prison Substance Misuse Service Specification shortly. This specification modernises and updates expectations in relation to the management of individuals with drug-related issues, including specifically, responses to psychoactive substances. The responses range from helping to build resilience to prevent use, management during acute intoxication (including ambulance transfer to acute hospital setting), psychosocial interventions and longer term strategies to prevent and avoid use.