Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prisoners who have displayed symptoms of covid-19 have been (a) isolated and (b) tested for the disease; and if he will make a statement.

One of the range of measures HMPPS is taking to limit the spread of the virus in prisons and save lives is to compartmentalise prisoners. This requires establishments to introduce isolation units (for the symptomatic), shielding units (for the vulnerable), and reverse cohorting units (to quarantine new arrivals).

All symptomatic prisoners are advised to isolate; as of Friday, 1 May we had 2,951 prisoners who were or are currently displaying symptoms and of these symptomatic prisoners we have tested 1,100 (37%) of them. We have counted those as tested if they have a positive or negative result recorded or are awaiting results.

The decision on whether to place an individual in an isolation unit is solely a clinical one, based on an assessment of symptoms. Having ‘flu-like’ symptoms alone is not necessarily enough to be placed on an isolation unit.