Offender Management Bill

I strongly support the amendment and wish to add a little to what my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has said. The international human rights framework has, for obvious reasons, a substantial number of requirements about healthcare in prisons. Prisons are very risky places for health, both mental and physical: they are basically unhealthy. Prisoners are often unhealthy when they go to prison. In many countries, they do not get good healthcare when they are in prison and they are at the mercy of whatever healthcare is offered to them because they are in captivity. The international human rights framework requires that prisoners get healthcare equivalent to that in the outside community. In this respect, England and Wales does particularly well in using the NHS to provide such care. The framework also requires there to be a prison medical officer so that health is always on the agenda at management level in the prison. Someone in management can keep health on the agenda and ensure that it is given appropriate priority. Health in prisons involves not just the healthcare of individuals who are held in prison; it also involves a number of policy questions. How are prisoners in segregation being held? Is segregation being used inappropriately for mentally ill people? Are people being adjudicated on as being fit for punishment when in fact they are not? Are people who come in full of drugs being appropriately detoxified? Is overcrowding so bad that it is a health risk? These are important matters above and beyond the healthcare of individual prisoners. They have a lot to do with saving life and a lot to do with running humane prisons. Therefore, I am very happy to support the amendment, not just because it is in accordance with the human rights framework, but because it is likely to ensure safer and more humane prisons.