11 January 2018

CNWL responds to an inspection report into HMYOI Cookham Wood by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, which provides Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services on the estate, said it was pleased the inspectors had noted the quality of the work carried out by the team within the establishment.

Offender Care Service Director, Phil Bolland, said: "Our health and wellbeing team work with a group of very challenging young offenders, many of which have complex needs.

"To hear our work being praised, not only by the inspectors but also by the young offenders, as ‘good and appropriately child focused' and that ‘the health and well-being team continued to provide a very good child and adolescent focused multidisciplinary mental health service', is very pleasing.

"In the past year we have introduced peer support work; the report noted the ‘very effective use of mentors' describing this as ‘an excellent initiative to help de-stigmatise emotional and mental health needs and promote self-esteem.'

"We are particularly proud of the impact of the service user representatives, two of whom attended Parliament last year to appear before the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

"The team concur with the findings regarding access to services being affected by prison officer shortages, however they continue to work closely with prison colleagues to ensure that delays are kept to a minimum to enable interventions to be facilitated and report there has been a recent increase in attendance at therapeutic sessions."

Editors' notes

The full report is here: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/01/Cookham-Wood-Web-2017.pdf

Information about the delivery of care by our mental health team is on page 44.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net