Steve Rotheram – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Rotheram on 2015-10-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to support suicidal and vulnerable inmates in (a) HMP Liverpool and (b) HMP Altcourse.

Andrew Selous

Every self-inflicted death is a tragedy and we are committed to reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths in prisons.

All prisons are required to have procedures in place to identify, manage and support people who are at risk of harm to themselves, and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has put in place additional resources to undertake this safer custody work. NOMS is also reviewing the operation of the case management process for prisoners assessed as being at risk and the Government is considering the recommendations of Lord Harris’ Review into the deaths in custody of young adults.

HMP Liverpool is implementing the recommendations arising out of the most recent inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, published on 20 October 2015. The prison has a full safer custody team, which has been allocated additional resources to support prisoners identified as being at risk. It operates a Listener peer support service in partnership with the Samaritans and will shortly be opening an early days centre to improve support for new prisoners.

HMP Altcourse has a local safer custody improvement plan that includes improvements to the support offered to prisoners in their early days. It also operates a Listener scheme with the support of the Samaritans.