To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners left prison with a drug addiction in the latest period for which figures are available.

I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department of Health.

We do not hold these figures centrally. The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System will be introduced across all English prisons and young offender institutions from April 2012. This will record the number of individuals leaving prison while receiving either drug or alcohol treatment. It will not however, generate data on dependence among the entire population of offenders leaving prisons. This is because drug assessments are not routinely carried out on every prisoner prior to release.

Any prisoner can self refer for drug treatment at any point during an episode of imprisonment, including immediately prior to release. National clinical guidelines give clinicians information on how they can undertake pre-release assessment and treatments.

From April 2013, the National Health Service Commissioning Board (NHSCB) will be responsible for the commissioning of health services for those in custody. The NHSCB will undertake commissioning responsibilities for prison substance misuse services on behalf of Public Health England and will work closely with local substance misuse commissioners and clinical commissioning groups to maintain a local approach and optimise continuity of treatment.