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In this month's edition...
We are delighted to present our Annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2021, published today. The profound and unprecedented impact of Covid-19 on everyone working in, and affected by, the criminal justice system, combined with large scale changes in the criminal justice policy and operating environment, has resulted in a particularly trying and turbulent year. Voluntary organisations have continued to support people in these extraordinary times, their resilience tested to the extreme. As part of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance, Clinks has continued to bring the expertise of voluntary organisations into health and justice initiatives during 2020-21. Find out more here
Clinks has recruited five trustees and two board fellows to our Board of Trustees. During this round of trustee recruitment, we ensured that people with lived experience of the criminal justice system, racially minoritised people and people under 30 were represented. Our board fellow scheme is for people under the age of 30 who want to gain the insight and experience of being on a board, without holding the full legal responsibilities for governing a charity. Clinks’ Governance and Executive Manager Joni Emery has written a blog about the recruitment process and the value of lived experience and diversity on trustee boards. She says, “having a diverse, fully representative board, including people with lived experience is not a ‘nice to have’, it is an essential part of great governance.” Read the blog here
Clinks is seeking voluntary sector leaders and practitioners from our membership working in the criminal justice system in England and Wales to join our new member advisory forum. This is an exciting opportunity where you will be able to provide Clinks with strategic and operational advice, and ensure that Clinks is best informed by the organisations that it supports. Meetings of the forum will be held once a quarter. If you are interested in becoming part of the forum, please send an expression of interest by 9am Monday 6th December. Find out more here
Budget 2021
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has presented his Autumn Budget and Spending Review. The Chancellor announced an increase in funding for the Ministry of Justice, including £3.8 billion being invested across England and Wales to deliver 20,000 more prison places by 2025. There has also been an investment in transitional accommodation, including an extra £200m a year to improve access to accommodation, employment support, and substance misuse treatment, and to introduce further measures for early intervention and to tackle youth offending. We made two representations to the Spending Review. Read the first setting out how the government can reduce reoffending by harnessing the knowledge and expertise of the voluntary sector, and the second focussing on the need to fully invest in family services
Needs and experiences of older people in prison
Clinks and Recoop have published a report providing valuable evidence on the needs and experiences of older people in prison, with key recommendations for policymakers to influence the development of the long awaited national Older offender strategy. The report, commissioned by Clinks through our work as a member of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance, was informed by Recoop’s engagement with older people in prison. The key findings from the report suggest that the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) should develop a delivery plan to sit underneath the Older offender strategy alongside developing a local strategy for meeting the needs of older prisoners informed by the HMPPS Model of Operational Delivery for Older Offenders. Read the full report here
Women in prison inquiry hears evidence on health
The Justice Committee's inquiry on women in prison held an evidence session looking at women’s health in prison. Witnesses included Jenny Talbot, Chair of the National Women's Prisons Health and Social Care Review; Dr Cath Durkin, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; and Dr Amanda Brown, GP at Her Majesty’s Prison Bronzefield. Witnesses spoke about the prevalence of complex physical and mental health needs amongst women in prison, including issues stemming from or exacerbated by experiences of homelessness, substance misuse and trauma. Witnesses suggested community alternatives to prison such as Community Sentence Treatment Requirements should be better utilised, and encouraged better sharing of health information across agencies. Read the transcript or watch the session here
Women in Prison inquiry
On 2nd November, the House of Commons Justice Committee heard evidence from Victoria Atkins MP (Minister of State for Prisons), Dr Jo Farrar (Second Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, and Chief Executive Officer at Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service), and Kate Davies CBE (Director of Health and Justice, Armed Forces and Sexual Referral Centres at NHS England). The Minister said a whole systems approach needs to be driven forward across government, recognised the importance of pre-sentence reports in informing sentences, and said she was keen to continue the previous Lord Chancellor’s work on neurodiversity. There was also emphasis on a ‘trauma-informed’ approach, including in training for staff. Find our twitter coverage here, or watch the event recording here
Health and Wellbeing Alliance evaluation
The Department for Health and Social Care has published an independent evaluation of the previous work of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance, commissioned by Ecorys. Clinks is a member of this alliance, which aims to bring the voice of the voluntary sector and people with lived experience into national policy making, to promote equality and reduce health inequalities. Overall, Health and Wellbeing Alliance members were positive around the overall aims of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance and felt it had delivered important work, albeit recognising that it would need to continue to evolve to provide maximum value from a potentially limited budget. The evaluation made recommendations around four themes: collaboration or competition; primary and/or secondary research; proactive or reactive input into policy agenda; and other secondary learning points. Read the report here
Mental health discharge
The Making Every Adult Matter Coalition (MEAM), of which Clinks is a member, has published a briefing exploring the experience of discharge from inpatient mental health care for people experiencing multiple disadvantage and those who support them. MEAM found that over half the areas across its network said there were ‘always’ or ‘very frequently’ problems with discharge from inpatient mental health support for their clients. Problems include people being discharged with little or no support in place, particularly around continuity of mental health care in the community and accommodation, and delayed discharges, often to allow more time to put suitable community support plans in place. The briefing gives examples of positive practice including patient involvement, local multi-agency partnerships, specialist discharge staff and Housing First support. Read the briefing here
Black and mixed heritage boys receiving poor support from youth offending services
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation has found ‘significant deficits’ in the quality of work conducted by youth offending services and partner agencies with Black and mixed heritage boys. Youth justice staff indicated to investigators that the majority of the boys they worked with suffered from multiple disadvantage and experienced complex needs such as emotional and mental health issues. The report makes a series of recommendations to the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and the Home Office, suggesting that YJB should publish data to show how well individual youth offending services are addressing disproportionality and to revise their guidance on case management to consider diversity, ethnicity and structural barriers. It also calls for the Home Office to publish disaggregated data on stop and search and ‘release under investigation’ statistics. Read the report here
New research aims to make prescribing of medication safer for people in prison
Manchester-based researchers have taken an important step towards making prescribing of medication safer for people in prison. The research involved searching electronic health records to uncover how many people in prisons have been affected by a potential problem related to their prescribed medication. The results of the study revealed that Prescribing Safety Indicators (set of indicators developed to identify patients at high risk of adverse drugs reactions and medicine-related incidents in primary care) can be successfully implemented into prison electronic health records, providing a significant opportunity to measure and improve medication safety for people in prisons. The researchers aim to launch a new study off the back of these results to test the introduction of the electronic health record in prison. Read the report here
Safety in custody statistics
The Ministry of Justice has published its statistics on the number of deaths, assaults and incidents of self-harm in the prison estate. The findings showed a significant increase of 40% in the total number of deaths in the 12 months leading up to September 2021 alongside a 13% increase in those who took their own life. This was followed by decreases in both the total number of incidents of self-harm and assaults of both other inmates and staff. However, the latest quarter showed a sharp increase in both metrics, with self-harm in women rising by 47%. Although the majority of the increase in deaths arose as a result of Covid-19 there is reason for concern regarding the physical and mental health and wellbeing of those in custodial environments. Read more here
Deaths of people serving sentences in the community
The Ministry of Justice has also published its yearly statistics on the number of deaths of those on probation. Unfortunately, the findings showed a sharp increase of 34% in those dying in the community over the past 12 months. Furthermore, a significant increase was found in the number of self-inflicted deaths in both men and women, accounting as the main cause of women’s deaths in the community at 39%. Of the 1,343 deaths, 46% were people serving court orders with 54% being on post release supervision. Although the largest increase in deaths was of natural causes, 60 were caused by Covid-19 indicating that there may be some continued difficulties in people accessing vital support services as a result of the pandemic. Read more here
Safety in the Children and Young People Secure Estate
The government has released statistics, up to June 2021, regarding safety in the Children and Young People Secure Estate (this includes Young Offender Institutions, Secure Training Centres and Secure Children's Homes). Key findings include that the annualised rate of assault incidents had increased by 124% compared to the same period last year, which was during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, the annualised rate of self-harming had increased by 27% compared to the same period last year. The number of individual children and young people self-harming increased 20% in the three months to 30th June 2021 compared to the same period last year. This is in the context of the average population falling 24% over the same period. Read the statistics here
Counting the cost of maternal imprisonment
Crest Advisory has published a report focussing on the cost of female imprisonment for two particularly vulnerable groups - mothers who are imprisoned and their children. The report states that data collection on maternal status is inconsistent, limiting the ability of relevant agencies to understand the scope and scale of those affected by maternal imprisonment, and maternal imprisonment is a significant trauma for children with potentially devastating consequences. The report makes a series of recommendations amongst three principles for reform: mothers should only be sent to prison as a last resort; children affected by maternal imprisonment must be offered specialist support; and maternal identity and the impact of separation from children must be recognised, understood and supported. Read the report here
Prisoners missing outpatient appointments
The Nuffield Trust has published a research report that found 42% of those in prison in 2019/20 had missed outpatient appointments. The report draws on admitted patient care and outpatient data from 2016/17 to 2019/20 and a review of recent policy literature, whilst considering important new evidence about areas of increasing policy significance such as remote consultations and different racially minoritised groups’ use of health services. The report makes a series of recommendations on how access to hospital can be improved including increasing access to outpatient services via remote consultations, providing greater transparency over prison escort numbers and reviewing the supply of prison escorts. It also suggests that prisons should make better use of hospital data including collecting, collating and publishing regular data on prisoners’ health care usage. Read the report here
Strategic grants – emotional support to prisoners
Following a market engagement event in September, The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has launched the competition for an ‘Emotional Support to Prisoners’ grant. The purpose of the grant programme is to enable the provision of emotional support to prisoners in distress or crisis across England and Wales. This scheme makes a significant contribution to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) safer custody agenda of keeping prisoners safe and reducing self-inflicted deaths. The duration of the grant funding will be from 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2025. The total funding available is £625,000 per annum. Applications can be made via the MoJ e-sourcing portal. Once logged in, search for “ITT_5631”. Applications are open until 10am on 3rd December 2021. Access the e-sourcing portal here
Regional Reducing Reoffending Plans
In this blog, Policy Officer Franklin Barrington summarises the Regional Reducing Reoffending Plans produced in August 2021 by the 12 Regional Probation Directors. He also looks at how voluntary organisations can play their part in helping to define and strengthen probation strategies at a regional level. The publication of these plans is a positive step and helps to strengthen accountability of the Probation Service under the reformed operating model. However, we see a mixed picture: some plans give lots of detail on the steps that will be taken locally across a range of areas to reduce reoffending, whereas others lack concrete commitments, and in some cases, do not mention important areas at all. Read more here
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About Clinks Health and justice bulletin
This regular bulletin provides Clinks members with the latest news for voluntary organisations involved in the health and care of people in the criminal justice system. It currently has 2,428 subscribers.
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