Mental Health for Prisoners

In 2001, before healthcare commissioning as a whole passed to the NHS, funding began to be provided for mental health in-reach services in prisons through the NHS. The aim was to implement the National Service Framework standards that applied in the community and to ensure that all prisoners with severe and enduring mental illness would be subject to the care programme approach. Community mental health teams (CMHTs) began to operate in prisons as mental health in-reach teams (MHIRTs), targeting those with severe and enduring mental illness who were not so ill as to require being sectioned. They were also expected to contribute to primary care, wing-based services, day care, transfer arrangements and suicide prevention.