Social service departments are "extremely reluctant" to carry
out assessments on older prisoners because they do not feel it is
their duty, according to the prisons inspectorate.
Glenys Jones, joint chair of the Association of Directors of
Social Services older people committee, said social services
departments could not meet prisoners' needs without more resources
from the Prison Service.
But she agreed that older prisoners were not being adequately
served, adding: "There are older people who are going to live or
die in prison, and if they were outside we would be looking at
residential care. But because they are in prison they don't seem to
have any access to that."
The report, which includes a case of a prisoner in a wheelchair
who could only have a bath once a month, adds that the Prison
Service has no strategy for dealing with the needs of older inmates
and must develop one urgently.
It calls on the Department of Health and the National Offender
Management Service to develop a strategy conforming to the National
Service Framework for Older People.