Hundreds of mentally ill prisoners denied urgent treatment in England

Most seriously ill inmates left to wait in cells often due to bed shortages at secure hospitals, data shows

• My world fell apart': life in prison with serious mental illness

Hundreds of severely mentally ill prisoners in urgent need of hospital treatment are being left in prison cells due to bed shortages in secure NHS psychiatric units, an investigation has discovered.

Freedom of information (FoI) responses from 22 NHS trusts reveal for the first time that just over half of the 5,403 prisoners in England assessed by prison-based psychiatrists to require hospitalisation were not transferred between 2016 and 2021 - an 81% increase on the number of prisoners denied a transfer in the previous five years.