Clause 20
Offender Management Bill
10:45 am
Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Bradford South, Labour)
I shall deal first with the reality of the clause and how it affects the Bill and then return tothe hon. and learned Gentleman’s concerns about mental health provision and to the wider debate about mental health issues.
The clause removes the requirement for prisonsto appoint a medical officer. The role of the medical officer in prisons is long outdated; its creation in legislation reflected the custom and practice in prisons long before the creation of the national health service and before the Prisons Act 1952 in which it appeared was passed. It represents the old way of providing health services to prisoners.
With the recent transfer of responsibility for prison health services in public sector prisons to the national health service, the great majority of prison health services are now delivered under the general provisions of the National Health Service Act 1977. Local primary care trusts now commission those services and the continued existence of the prison medical officer is at odds with the modern national health service.
When it was first implemented, the medical officer role represented a mix of managerial, practical and clinical duties, some of which we would now view as inappropriate for a clinician. Over the years, the role has in practice evolved considerably to keep pace with the modernisation of the service. It has moved from the tradition of the person with that role being an officer of the prison towards a more appropriate role, equivalent to that of a community GP.
The removal of the medical officer role servesto support the significant improvement and modernisation of prison health services that has taken place in recent years. It also reflects the enormous cultural change that needed to take place in prisons to effect those changes. The clause removes outdated, unhelpful terminology that acted as a barrier to the delivery of practical and cultural change in prison health services. The change ensures that the future of the prison health service is within the NHS, with health services provided via the 1977 Act, in line with services for the rest of the population. That is the reasoning behind the clause, which hon. Members will understand in relation to the purposes of the Bill.
Rightly, and understandably, the hon. and learned Gentleman raised the issue of mental health problems in prisons. I agree with him that there are people in prison with mental health problems who do not need to be there and we should make every effort to ensure that their needs are addressed.