Prisoners: Self-harm and Suicide

(asked on 12th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women known to be pregnant from July 2020 to March 2021, as reported in the HMPPS Annual Digest 2020/21, were under Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) monitoring for risks of self-harm and/or suicide.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 22nd November 2021

The specific information requested is not collected centrally, and therefore could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

On 20 September the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published a new policy on pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units and maternal separation from children up to the age of two in women’s prisons, which contains a range of reforms for improving the care of pregnant women. The policy requires increased both local and central data collection on self-declared pregnant women in our care, to ensure individuals are receiving the relevant support and to ensure policy is more informed.

We publish some of this data in the HMPPS Annual Digest of statistical information. We published the first of these on 29 July 2021, which showed that during the period July 2020-April 2021 an average of 26 women self-declared as pregnant each week. Data on how many of these women were subject to Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) or self-declared as pregnant on first reception into custody is not centrally collected, however this data is reviewed locally.

This is a dynamic area of policy and we will continue to consider our central collection as it develops.

Reticulating Splines