Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average time was that prisoners with mental illness waited for transfer to an appropriate health setting in the last 12 months.

Data are not collected centrally on the number of prisoners waiting for an initial psychiatric assessment. Data on prisoners in receipt of an assessment and awaiting transfer to secure hospitals under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983 are collected by NHS England since April 2015, through Health and Justice Indicators of Performance (HJIPs) and available data are shown in the attached table, Health and Justice Indicators of Performance – Mental Health Secure Assessment and Transfer. NHS England intends to publish HJIP data online from April 2016.