UK NPM 15th Annual Report highlights urgent need for systemic change

Today, the UK NPM’s 15^th Annual Report was laid in Parliament. The report highlights numerous ongoing concerns from different settings of deprivation of liberty across the four nations of the United Kingdom.

While NPM bodies regularly encounter dedicated, skilled staff working hard to provide excellent care and support, we are disappointed to reiterate in yet another annual report that these staff continue to deal with the same systemic issues NPM bodies have reported for 15 years.

The NPM annual report details that systemic issues around mental healthcare provision, increasing numbers of people deprived of their liberty and unstable staffing numbers persist across all settings. In addition, the report provides a synthesis of how the NPM has informed the findings of international human rights mechanisms over the 2023-24 year. Concerns highlighted by the UN Human Rights Committee, Council of Europe, and the Special Rapporteur on Torture include:

• high-risk conditions in UK detention settings, such as chronic overcrowding, poor living conditions, lack of purposeful regimes and inconsistent information management.
• Solitary confinement
• The psychological impact of indeterminate sentences or indefinite detention
• Mental health, self-harm, and self-inflicted deaths in detention

The preventive based scrutiny conducted by the UK NPM bodies is important not just for what we find on visits, but what we don’t find. As an organisation made up of 21 bodies, more than 3,500 dedicated staff and volunteers carry out tens of thousands of preventive visits every year, make targeted recommendations and publish inspection and thematic reports. Without this regular and thorough scrutiny, experiences of detainees would be significantly worse.

However, the treatment of people deprived of their liberty, and the conditions in which they are held, must improve. When people deprived of their liberty are treated with dignity, receive the healthcare and mental health care they need, and are able to access rehabilitation opportunities, we all benefit: our communities are safer, families can heal, and individuals can participate fully in our society.

The UK NPM will continue to provide recommendations which highlight areas of improvement, but recommendations alone are not enough. It is up to the governments of this country to lead the way, taking meaningful action to create sustainable change, including investment in staffing and infrastructure, and ensuring any statutory changes promote the rights of people deprived of their liberty.

Read the full UK NPM Annual Report 2023-24 .