Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health

Short-changed

Spending on Prison Mental Health Care

Short-changed, produced together with Lincoln University, shows that prison inreach teams get £300 in funding for every prisoner in England. This is only about one-third of what they need to offer the same level of service as community mental health services.

Short-changed finds that there is wide variation in funding for prison mental health care which cannot be explained by higher costs or different needs between regions.

Some 4,700 prisoners now get support from inreach teams. But this is much less than the estimated one in twelve prisoners who has severe mental health problems.