Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the average waiting time for prisoners to access an accredited drug treatment programme in prison; and how long, on average, an individual participates in an accredited drug treatment programme in prison once they have begun treatment.

Data on substance misuse treatment in prisons and other secure settings is available from Public Health England’s National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS).

The latest NDTMS report for 2017-18 shows the median time between a person entering an adult secure setting and receiving a triage assessment for substance misuse treatment was one day. Nearly all - 96%, or 34,368/35,689 - adults started their first treatment intervention within three weeks of being assessed but would start treatment immediately if it was clinically appropriate to do so. The rest - 3% or 1,092 - waited over three weeks, and 1% or 229 did not have an intervention recorded.

The report also provides information on the mean length of time adults participate in structured treatment while in a secure setting. The average length of a treatment intervention for opiate clients was 72 days, non-opiate clients was 125 days, non-opiate and alcohol clients was 112 days and alcohol only clients was 78 days.