Inmates receive payouts of £2m for poor healthcare amid 'unprecedented pressures' in prisons

Inmates have been paid close to £2m in compensation for poor healthcare behind bars since 2010 amid mounting concern over the scale of the crisis gripping Britain’s prisons.

New figures show that payouts to prisoners for medical negligence or poor treatment have been on the rise since 2010-11, when inmates received just £26,389 in damages, compared to £360,325 last year.

Compensation claims for inmates amounted to £1,984,439 over the past seven years, soaring to a high of £617,468 in 2012-13, analysis of official data showed.

It comes after the Government was issued with an unprecedented warning from prison inspectors about the “dramatic decline” in conditions, as prisons grapple with a toxic cocktail of drugs, violence and soaring suicide rates among inmates.

Inspectors found conditions at HMP Liverpool were the “worst they had ever seen”, with prisoners living among litter, rats and cockroaches. Meanwhile, the prisons watchdog recently warned that inmates at HMP Nottingham were living in “fundamentally unsafe” conditions.

Leading doctors have spoken out in the past over the challenges in delivering healthcare behind bars, as shortages of prison staff and transport can mean medics are forced to cancel or delay treatment for sick prisoners for security reasons, according to the BMA.

In its latest annual report, the prisons watchdog said health services “were affected by shortages of prison staff and restrictive regimes” and many prisoners lived in overcrowded and poor cells. However, it found the overall quality of care was reasonable.

Shadow health minister Justin Madders, who obtained the figures, said: “These are extremely worrying findings. The substantial increase in compensation for negligent care is a stark indication of the unprecedented pressures being placed on NHS workers treating prisoners, and shockingly the real figures could be higher still.

“Seven years of harsh austerity has left patients suffering and care quality has evidently taken a hit.”

Mark Day, head of policy and communications at the Prison Reform Trust, said prisoners should receive the same standard of healthcare as they would in the community, but this was often not achieved on the ground.

He told The Independent: “People in prison are far more likely to suffer from health problems than the general population. But in understaffed and overcrowded prisons, prisoners can face significant challenges in making and keeping health appointments.

“In the secure environment of a prison, they can also face problems getting access to the healthcare and medication they need.

“At the same time, a rapidly rising population of older prisoners is placing additional pressure on health provision, with prisons a poor environment to provide care for people coming towards the end of their life.”

Health minister Jackie Doyle-Price, responding to a written parliamentary question, said: “These figures represent the amount of compensation paid to prisoners arising from negligent care or treatment provided by National Health Service organisations which are members of the NHS Resolution indemnity scheme.

“NHS Resolution members are not the sole providers of prison healthcare and hence the figures do not represent the total amount of compensation paid to prisoners.”

The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment.