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.
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Government Legislation
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Private Member Bills
04 July 2008