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Prisoners: Suicide

Question for Ministry of Justice

UIN HL6759, tabled on 24 April 2017

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the proportion of staff in all custodial institutions who are adequately trained in suicide and self-harm prevention.

Answered on

27 April 2017

All staff in contact with prisoners are required to receive training on suicide and self-harm prevention.

We have also developed a new ‘Introduction to Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention’ course that includes a module on mental health awareness. From May 2017 this will be provided as part of the entry level training for new prison officers, and nearly three hundred trainers have been trained to facilitate its delivery in prisons as refresher training for existing staff.

We do not hold centrally the amount spent in all prisons on suicide and self-harm prevention training.