Prison mental health inreach services

Abstract

Prison mental health inreach teams have been established nationwide in England and Wales over the past 3 years to identify and treat mental disorders among prisoners. This paper summarises the policy content and what has been achieved thus far, and poses challenges that these teams face if they are to become a clear and effective component in the overall system of forensic mental healthcare.

Mental health expertise at prison reception

“…These results are unsurprising, given the clear role that primary care and substance misuse services play in the treatment of alcohol and substance dependencies in prisons. As such, this particular MHIT referral pattern demonstrates little of the 'mission creep' that has been identified as a national challenge for such teams (Steel et al, 2007), whereby teams operating at a specialist level absorb primary care level mental health problems. This is probably because the prison in this study did also have a primary care mental health team, so this particular MHIT may have had less need than teams in some prisons to extend work beyond expected secondary care boundaries.…”

Estrategias asistenciales de los problemas de salud mental en el medio penitenciario, el caso español en el contexto europeo

“…• Another reason lays on inappropriate management of public policies which do not promote the coordination between different administrations in charge of these patients 32,33 , which leads to an apparently irreconcilable relationship between different points of view belonging to justice administration, which pursues the strict compliance with law, and health administration, whose main objectives are healing and rehabilitation. This would entail the main argument to explain the administration's erratic actions towards these patients, who should be in charge of specialized therapists to enable their social rehabilitation and whose guardianship should lay in courts, something which still today is extraordinarily rare.…”

Prison health‐care wings: Psychiatry's forgotten frontier?

“…Nevertheless, it is not appropriate for individuals with illness which incapacitates them to this extent to remain in prison for long. Although prison in-reach teams can support prisoners with stable, severe and enduring mental health problems (Steel et al, 2007), they require assistance from local services for those with acute conditions. This particularly applies to those who are mentally incapacitated by their symptoms.…”