To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent estimate his Department has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of the prison population with one or more mental health condition, broken down by condition; and if he will make a statement. (264719)

The Government have commissioned my noble Friend, Lord Keith Bradley to carry out a review on offenders with mental health and learning disability problems. There is a Government commitment to publishing the Bradley review report during April 2009.

The most recent estimates for mental health of the prisoner population of England and Wales come from Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SPCR), from 2005-06. There is also an older Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (PMS) among prisoners (1997). There is a measure of comparability across relevant results from the two surveys.

Across the two surveys, the range of prevalence rates for any functional psychosis was between 7 per cent. and 9 per cent. for sentenced males, and 14 per cent. and 18 per cent. for sentenced females.

Also across the two surveys, the range of prevalence rates for any personality disorder was between 62 per cent. and 64 per cent. for sentenced males, and 57 per cent. and 59 per cent. for sentenced females.

Figures for neurotic conditions such as anxiety and depression were not obtained in the same way in the two surveys. Focusing just on the more recent SPCR figures (using the Maudsley Addiction Profile), and using a threshold of six symptoms, 34 per cent. of sentenced male prisoners and 56 per cent. of sentenced female prisoners were appreciably affected by anxiety/depression and other neurotic conditions.

Neither set of survey results has been translated from percentage figures into estimates of numbers of prisoners.

Further information on the results of these two surveys can be found in the published reports. These are, for SPCR, “The Problems and Needs of Newly Sentenced Prisoners: Results from a National Survey” Ministry of Justice Research Series 16/08 (2008). For PSM: “Psychiatric Morbidity among Prisoners in England and Wales: Summary Report” (ONS, 1998).

SPCR:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/research-2008.htm

PSM:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/Prisoners_PsycMorb.pdf

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many and what proportion of the prison population have been held in (a) NHS and (b) independent sector mental healthcare places in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement. (264720)

Centrally held information is not available to answer all parts of the question posed. The annual statistical bulletin on mentally disordered offenders for England and Wales over the last 10 years for which figures are available gives the number of mentally disordered offenders admitted to hospital from prison, detained in hospital following transfer from prison and transferred back to prison from hospital (while un-sentenced and after sentencing) are shown in the following table.

These figures are drawn from tables 2, 6 and 9 of “Statistics of Mentally Disordered Offenders 2007: England and Wales”, which can be downloaded from:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/mentally-disordered-offenders-2007.pdf

It is not possible to differentiate between those held in NHS and independent sector mental health care places.