Interim report of the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders.

  • Great Britain. Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders.
Date:
1974
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Interim report of the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    extreme pressure on this secure accommodation, and the need to provide relief in one way or another. On our visits to the special hospitals it is not too much to say that we have been astonished and shocked at the over- crowding, particularly in Broadmoor, where in some wards the beds, in rows right across the room, are no more than eighteen inches apart. In these dormitories, the patients, who are by definition likely to be detained for long periods (although not throughout in these same wards) and are all suffering from mental disorder, can obviously have no privacy, and as there is no cupboard room they are living out of suitcases. We note that the Parliamentary Estimates Committee reported that their Sub-Committee had been “appalled” at the conditions when they visited Broadmoor in 1967-68.* They paid a tribute to the work of the staff in these adverse conditions, which we whole-heartedly endorse. The conditions are in no way the fault of the staff, but arise directly from the overcrowding. Obviously the position is no better than when the Parliamentary Committee reported. A fourth special hospital is being planned and work on an advance unit of 70 beds should be completed later this year. However, even when the new hospital is ready there will be less than 100 extra places for male patients because Broadmoor is to be re-built and reduced in size. 5. Between the overcrowded but secure special hospitals and the National Health Service hospitals providing no security there is, to borrow a phrase from a memorandum of evidence of the British Society for the Study of Mental Subnormality, a “yawning gap”. The many other witnesses who have drawn attention to this lack of intermediate provision and the resultant problems include : — The Justices’ Clerks’ Society The Confederation of Health Service Employees The Chief and Principal Nursing Officers (Special Hospitals) The National Association for Mental Health The Oxford Regional Hospital Board The Royal College of Psychiatrists The Consultant Forensic Psychiatrists Individual consultant psychiatrists The Institute of Professional Civil Servants Representatives of the Prison Medical Service Representatives of the Probation and After-Care Service The Royal College of Nursing The Parole Board HM Judges The TUC The Howard League The National Council for Civil Liberties The Magistrates’ Association Cambridge City Magistrates The Board of Visitors, Ashford Remand Centre The Broadmoor Medical Advisory Committee The British Association of Social Workers. * Second Report from the Estimates Committee, Session 1967-68, paragraphs 12-13.