Criminal Justice Mental Health Services

Meeting the mental health needs of adults and young people in the criminal justice system is high on the Government agenda. Cygnet Health Care supports this, and provides care and treatment to offenders with mental health issues, in a variety of settings. We are also working with commissioners and other providers to develop new services to improve the health and wellbeing of offenders.

Prison Inreach Service

We aim to provide a fully integrated prison health care service, using a stepped care model of health interventions, and bringing together health and social care services, with contributions from statutory and non statutory bodies.

We launched our prison inreach service at Cookham Wood initially to provide specialist assessment, care and treatment for female prisoners, aged 15-18, with severe, complex mental health problems or disorders, including personality disorders and self harm issues. The prison has since changed in function to accommodate 15-17 year old men, and we now provide care for over 150 of these prisoners.

Prison Transfer Service

We also offer inpatient care for prisoners whose mental health care needs cannot be met within the prison environment and who, following the Bradley Review, should be prioritised for transfer within 14 days. We have developed a special service for this at Cygnet Wing Blackheath and Cygnet Hospital Kewstoke.

We conduct assessments and make recommendations within five days of referral - and our links with the Ministry of Justice Mental Health Unit often allows for prompt transfer warrants.

Once admitted, we carry out a detailed assessment of the service user and recommend future management and treatment. Our aim is to achieve this within a fixed length stay of 6-8 weeks. Our initial priority is to stabilise the individual's symptoms in the acute phase of their illness.

Locations

We offer our Prison Transfer Service from the following Cygnet Health hospitals:

In addition the following Cygnet Health hospitals accept referrals from the Ministry of Justice: