Mentally ill men forced into prison to get a bed

Police are sending people in mental health crisis to prison when they should be in a secure hospital, with “devastating consequences”, inspectors have warned.

West Midlands Police introduced a local version of the national “Right Care Right Person” policy without consultation or agreement from partner agencies, including the NHS, inspectors found.

Under this approach, the force stopped asking “liaison and diversion” mental health services to arrange assessments before sending detainees to court, including where it identified serious mental illness.

It appears to have begun last year and involves about nine prisoners each month.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons told HSJ: “The crucial diversion function in custody is being overridden by criminal justice imperatives when the core purpose of liaison and diversion is to prevent vulnerable, acutely mentally unwell detainees entering the criminal justice system.”

NHS England has expressed “serious concerns” and an inspectors’ report said that, along with senior managers at the prison, NHSE had raised the issue with the police. Despite a warning from the prisons inspector in the autumn, as of June there was “no progress at all” in stopping the police sending “the most mentally unwell men to Birmingham without prior assessment or diversion”, the inspectorate has reported.

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Source: HSJ, 10 August 2026