Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications for transfer from prison to hospital were decided (1) within the target timescales set by the HM Prison and Probation Service Mental Health Casework Section, and (2) outside the target timescales; and of those transfers decided outside of the target timescales, what was the average length of delay, in each of the last five years.

In August 2019 and following consultation with stakeholders, the Mental Health Casework Section (MHCS) of HM Prison and Probation Service introduced a target of five calendar days to authorise a warrant to transfer prisoners from prison to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983. A transfer may be authorised only when two medical reports and all other relevant information is received as required under the statutory criteria set out in section 47 (for sentenced prisoners) and section 48 (unsentenced prisoners, civil prisoners and immigration detainees) of the Mental Health Act 1983.

The information requested can be found in the tables below. We have not disclosed for 2019 as to do so would be at a disproportionate cost. In addition, we have not disclosed for 2023 as the information requested is a subset of transfer data that we are scheduled to publish on 25 April 2024.

Table 1. Applications for Transfer Decided within Target

Table 2. Average (median) delay days for authorized applications

Notes:

1. Applications authorized within 5 days are within target.

2. Average is based on completed/authorized cases.

Data sources and quality

We have drawn the figures in these tables from the Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD). As is common with figures from large scale recording systems, figures in these tables are subject to data entry and processing errors. As a result, these numbers are subject to revision as more data become available.